On our travels around the Cotswolds we visited Bourton-on-the-water, sorry Bourton but you have been truly ruined, far to many tourist type things of the very worst kind. (enough said). However the twin villages of Upper and lower Slaughter are just a mile away. The name comes from old English 'Slohtre', which has nothing to do with killing things and means, simply, 'Muddy place'. We saw no mud just truly unspoilt beauty. The two villages have remained utterly unchanged for more than a century with no building work taking place at all since 1906.
Lower Slaughter has a beautiful old flour mill, where we sat idyllically eating out lunch right by the river, very friendly ladies working there, even going to the trouble of finding me a stamp to put on my mums postcard.
The less-visited Upper Slaughter lies, as its name suggests, minutes upstream from Lower Slaughter. We walked from one village to another across fields and felt like we were in Lark Rise to Candleford.
The only problem I see visiting these two beautiful places, is that it's quite a shock to the system coming back into the real world.
The beautiful old flour mill.
The cottage windows with matching marmalade jar curtains.
The horses get to walk through the mill river to cool off.
All the houses in both villages are very well kept, which is really nice to see.
There are lots of lovely streams to cool off in
The path across the field from one village to another.
Very Lark Rise To Candleford. This lovely old tree obviously has some tales to tell.
We will return, if only to step back in time for a few relaxing hours.