Cirencester

Fri 4th-Mon 7th November 2022

We decided to take a long weekend break and chose Cirencester as it was a new venue to both of us.

We made our way there with a drive through the Cotswolds stopping off in Broadway. We traditionally visit here once a year and enjoy a mooch about there chuckling at the price of items, we rarely buy anything as we can usually source it cheaper elsewhere. The Cotswolds is corduroy trousers, sports jacket/ Barbour jacket country so I made sure I was wearing my cords, sadly they were blue, not good enough I’m afraid.

We stayed at Cirencester Caravan and Motorhome Site, selected for a few reasons, firstly it was far enough away from residential areas so that Layla wouldn’t be overly bothered by fireworks going off all Saturday night. Secondly it’s not often we stay on such sites even though we are members, cost is a factor but we thought we would spoil ourselves, it turned out to be a good site, well maintained, we would visit again, sadly there was no wifi connection, hence having to write the blog after we returned. Thirdly it is on the edge of a huge area of parkland with a paved footpath lead directly into the centre of Cirencester a mile away.

Over the weekend the above mobile kitchen is on site serving breakfasts in the morning and meals for two hours every evening, even though it’s called mac and cheese, there wasn’t any. A menu in the info hut next to it showed quite a range of items for sale including burgers, however it wasn’t to be, all they were cooking was pies and fries. On Friday evening I treated Michelle to a pie and fries, sadly I’m not keen on meat pies and there wasn’t a vege option so I just ended up with fries, it’s a hard life.

It was an easy walk into Cirencester through the park part of the Bathurst Estate, it’s open from 9am to 5 pm every day and was a haven for dog walkers, Layla loved it and as usual on one of our walks found a brand new tennis ball amongst the leaves, she carried it for 3 miles, it was her treasure.

Cirencester is in Gloucestershire 80 miles west of London on the River Churn, it’s a Roman town and was known as Corinium and was second in size to London, however in 6th century the Saxons destroyed the town and only re-emerged in medieval times as a “ wool town” becoming very prosperous.

It’s a busy market town with markets being held in the town centre and market hall, we missed the weekly market but over the weekend there was a craft fair on Saturday and a vintage and collectibles market on Sunday.

There is another park behind the church known as Abbey Park, we visited this on Sunday there is very little to see with regards to it once being an Abbey but it was a pleasant walk nonetheless.

There are a large variety of shops, cafes and restaurants in Cirencester plenty to keep people occupied, we had a very pleasant lunch in the Bear and would recommend it for both the menu and excellent service.The weather could have been kinder but we knew rain was forecast and boy did it rain at times, we managed to end up damp a few times but it didn’t dampen our enjoyment and we ended up walking well over 4 miles on both Saturday and Sunday. We will return sooner rather than later.