A Birthday Trip to Broadway

On Tuesday morning I woke up with a 59 year old man beside me, how the hell did that happen?! 

Yes, it was Jon's birthday last week and we decided to continue with our Cotswold odyssey and visit the village of Broadway. Just down the road from Tewkesbury, Broadway is postcard perfect and known as the Jewel of the Cotswolds. The "broad way" is the wide grass-fringed main street, centred on the Green, lined with chestnut trees and honey-coloured Cotswold limestone buildings, many dating from the 16th century. 

An ancient settlement daing back to Mestholithic times, it was settled by the Romans and by the Tudor era the village had grown rich with the Cotswold wool and cloth trade. By the 16th Century Broadway had become a busy stagecoach stop, breaking up the journey between Worcester and London, with the village providing all that was needed by the weary traveller, grooms, places of refreshment and extra horses but, following the introduction of the railways and the opening of a station at nearby Evesham in 1852, the once thriving village became a backwater, a haven of peace and tranquilty with Victorian artists and writers drawn to Broadway with the Arts and Crafts Movement eventually making its home in the area. 

Known as the Colony of Creativity, the group started with William Morris and included Edwin Austin Abbey, Francis D Millet, Alfred Parsons, Henry James, Edmund Gosse, Frederick Barnard, JM Barrie and John Singer Sargent. Russell House (above) built in 1791, on the outskirts of the village, became an integral part of the scene with several of the American artists lodging here and the extensive gardens immortalised in many of the artworks they produced includung Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885- 6) by John Singer Sargent (below).

Just over an hour's drive away from home, it really does feel like another world, even on a dull day like last Tuesday, that buttery yellow Cotswold stone gives the impression that the village is bathed in sunshine and the majority of visitors were Italian and American with not a Midlands accent to be heard!

No regimented municipal planting schemes here, the chaos of the cottage garden reigns supreme. 

This ancient stone post was deliberately defaced during World War 2 in case it revealed valuable information to invading German paratroopers.

The War Memorial was erected in 1920 and designed by FL Griggs in the English Modern style. 

As usual, we played the Which house would you live in if money was no object? game....we were spoilt for choice. Its hardly surprising that rock stars and celebs like Kate Moss and The Beckhams move to The Cotswolds, if we were millionaires we'd join them! 

Housed within a gorgeous 17th Century former coaching inn, Broadway Museum and Art Gallery has some fabulous artworks by John Singer Sargent and a wonderful cabinet of curiosities filled with everyting from 300BCE Greek busts, Egyptian goddesses and Mediaeval trinketry.

We were fascinated by this 17th century grafitti. 

We loved the look of Broadway Deli and headed there for lunch. At £20 each, they were probably the priciest salads we'd ever eaten but they were incredible and so big we didn't need to eat again until the following day. Jon loved his traditional Polughman's and mine, with a vegetarian take on a Scotch egg (a soft boiled egg encased in a spicy chickpea batter) was the stuff dreams were made of. 

The Lygon Arms (below) dates from Medieval times and hosted the leaders of both sides of the 17th-century English Civil Wars. Its sign has been re-painted many many times. In 1377 it was named The White Hart after Richard II but following his defeat by Henry IV it became the White Swan, emblem of the house of Lancaster. During Henry V's reign it became The Hart & Swan and in the days of James I The George. The current name dates from 1841 after its owner, General Henry Beauchamp Lygon, who fought at the Battle of Waterloo.

The Gordon Russell Design Museum celebrates the design pioneer Gordon Russell and the company that bore his name. Integral to 20th-century British craft and manufacturing, Gordon Russell championed accessible, innovative, and high-quality design, evolving from Arts and Crafts through to Modernism, post WWII's Utility and Mid-Century Modern. The £8 admission fee allows unlimited access to the museum for a year and also gives ticket holders 50% off admission to Court Barn, the museum of craft and design, in nearby Chipping Camden. The gift shop is splendid.

Russell's designs are stylish, timeless and equisitely made and visitors are encouraged to touch some of the exbibits on display, to sit on the chairs, open and close the cupboards and drawers and rummage through his tool collection.

Broadway village is a short walk from William Morris's favourite hangout, Broadway Tower, which we visited HERE and also very close to the maximalist's dream National Trust property, Snowshill Manor which I've posted about HERE. Well worth a trip to the Midlands!

Broadway village is a short walk from William Morris's favourite hangout, Broadway Tower, which we visited HERE and also very close to the maximalist's dream National Trust property, Snowshill Manor which I've posted about HERE. Well worth a trip to the Midlands!

Of course, Jon's birthday wasn't all gentile tearooms and posh villages, we also celebrated with an all-dayer in Walsall's Wetherspoons and the fun continues this week ...we're off to Devon where we'll be trading at Beautiful Days and Jon, being an ex-punk, is very excited to see The Sex Pistols! 

What a line-up! 

See you next week.