As I resident of the southern edge of the Cotswolds you are unfortunately quite correct regarding the majority of pubs. The first question upon arrival will not be "What would you like to drink Sir/Madam" but "Will you be eating with us today Sir/Madam". An answer in the negative relegates you to second class status for the rest of your visit. They are all decorated the same, all serve the same overpriced food and all charge daft money for pub classics. Your fish and chips will be a twenty quid (Insert local craft brewery beer here) battered haddock with triple cooked chips (just do it right the first time) and "home made" mushy peas for a fiver extra. You will be offered "A trio of local sausages" with buttered mashed potatoes and a red onion jus, just call it gravy and don't charge me eighteen quid, veg once again an expensive add-on. Your Caesar salad will require an extra fiver if you want chicken. The vegetarian option will be an afterthought, usually mushroom risotto or pasta. The thing that really winds me up working for a local supplier is the mismatch between what is offered on so many menus and what they are actually buying, but I want to keep my job so I'll leave it there! There are a few good boozers amongst all this nonsense but they are getting harder to find. I think my local may be the only one in the region where your food options are crisps, nuts and pickled eggs! However it's full of friendly locals, shows the footy and has a real community spirit. Rant over, loving your work Tweedy!
Wonderful countryside; a location that isn't too far from me yet has so far eluded me. I always admire your lack of urgency as the sun goes down, appreciating the sunset with a glass of wine whereas many of us would be anxious about organising the way back. Thanks again for the mention- Wessex Ways will be out soon and it was an utter pleasure having you on.
Thanks Hedley! I think a lot of the Cotswolds is more "gentle" scenery than the comparative drama of the North Wessex Downs (or indeed South Downs) but it's a different atmosphere and nice in its own way. Sort of related to what we were discussing on Tuesday, I love being outdoors in the fading light! It shows a very different aspect of the landscape, and creates a very different atmosphere. In a weird way I also quite enjoy figuring out the transport logistics of how to get home - it was especially satisfying how well that worked on this occasion.
Hi John. Such an entertaining video. The food looked delicious and definitely something I would try myself. Kudos to you for navigating through such muddy paths. The stone circle is unknown to me. How could I be in my 7th decade and be unaware of their existence. Thank you for continually enlightening me. 👏👏👍😀
Brilliant, I think we stopped at that spot too for quite a while when we looked at that line. Maybe 3 years back? Yet to visit the stones, but certainly on the list!
Thank Paul! Perhaps a bit outside your normal stomping ground but this outing did feel like it might have been your cup of tea with the combination of the dismantled railway and then the ancient history.
Hello Tweedy, isn't it such a lovely way to approach your destination on foot, so much nicer than arriving by car. You really appreciate the setting and the beautiful countryside. I really enjoyed that video 😊
Fascinating Mr Tweedy, you must have walked miles to include all those places. Lots of history in the route including an old railway line too, lovely :) Cheers, Warren
Thanks Warren! My phone tells me I walked about 12 miles in total. It's a shame that old railway line wasn't converted to make a footpath / track as some of them have been - it would have made some stretches of this walk more direct.
Käsespätzle. I have not eaten that for a long long time. I used to go to Zug for work many times. Käsespätzle was one of my favourite meals. I have a case of that wine! lol I was actually thinking of opening a bottle today! I used to bring back zuger kirschtorte. I lovely dessert. funny story (from the 90's). I bought a zuger kirschtorte to bring home and the local shop in Zug really put a lot of kirsch in them. so you HAD to carry them horizontally. I had this in my briefcase and when I went through customs in Zurich, I was carrying my briefcase horizontally in my arms and just said to the officer 'zuger kirschtorte' he went 'AH' and let me through!! No way these days! lol.Edit: looked the cake up and this is the shop I bought it from!! "Pastry chef Heinrich Höhn invented the cake 1921 in the city of Zug"
That's a delightful anecdote Alan! I too used to go to that area now and again for work (Zurich rather than Zug) and always enjoyed the food there. I think the "Dames Huguettes" from Gavignet is very good. It was young as well - a 2021 - Tom was saying he thinks many of his 2021s are in better shape than the 2020s.
Hi, a wonderful walk from start to finish!! Lunch on disused railway land👌👌, Paul will be proud of you!! I wouldn't consider your last outing a failed meal, I prefer my vegetables to have some crunch or am often quite happy if they are raw. No wonder you got to the stones so quickly you didn't open your wine till you got there!! Mind you you had to battle through the mud too. And I was wondering how on earth are you were going to get home but it all worked like clockwork. The evening sky was magnificent too no need for the sunset. A great walk, well done. Have a great week!! Looking forward to the battle of the wafflers in the Wessex Way Podcast😅😅
I really love the sense of adventure watching your videos, never a feeling that everything is planned down to the last script point. Wine, stones, sunset - what more could one ask for. Thank you.
Thanks Chris! Yes this one was very much planned as I went along - I decided to get the train to Kingham about five minutes before it left Paddington, and then figured out all the other transport logistics while I was out on the walk. I was very pleased by how well it worked out, considering!
The Whispering Knights are my favourite monument there, out of the 3. I don’t know why! The chap in the technicolour coat seemed to be enjoying them too. The Rollright Stones are lovely, of course, but the first time I went there I was disappointed by their proximity to a busy road. And there’s a reason for that… When they filmed Doctor Who there in the late 70s they actually closed the road, so you got no sense of it being there. The food looked fabulous again. Another dish I’ve never heard of and must try.
Yes I know what you mean about the Whispering Knights. It's a little bit hard to take the King's Men (the stone circle) seriously given the height of the stones - I am ever so slightly reminded of that sequence in This is Spinal Tap! It's completely irrational but I want standing stones to be at least as tall as me or they just don't seem like megaliths. More like mesoliths. ...and yes the proximity to the road is unfortunate. Unfortunately this seems to be a fate shared by all the major stone circles of Southern England! Perhaps Stanton Drew is the most peaceful of the most well known handful. I suspect most people in Germany/Switzerland would make spätzle from scratch at home rather than buying them in a bag like I did. I have done that once or twice, and the recipe is fairly simple but it's very messy! These ready made ones aren't easy to find - I used to go do a German deli in London for them, unfortunately that closed down, but I was pleased to find some in Eataly, the Italian food shop the other day. I do think this makes a lot of sense as a form of pasta like food in a camping / outdoor cooking context as you can pan fry them, so you don't need to carry a load of extra water which you're going to end up throwing away!
@@tweedyoutdoors I think I was put in mind of the Spinal Tap sequence when I first visited! The King’s Men are at least 3 times the size of Casterton Circle stones that I viewed from afar last week!
You missed the cold war bunker in a field next to the stones. Back in the day on occasion you could see uniformed people suddenly appearing from it. Dont know if they are still there but there used to be massive concrete towers, possibly fortified, with microwave dishes as part of some sort of military communication network running slong that part of the world. The landowner was up in arms over signs pointing to the stones and regularly defaced them. This was all back in the 80's. Fun times.
@@tweedyoutdoors ua-cam.com/video/48dI_EiSGRU/v-deo.htmlsi=9nmLU5HNuxmU0fFP One of these things in near by field. The black thing with north south east west held photographic film that would aid in measuring direction and yield of a nuclear explosion. All very crude.
Really enjoyed the locations, particularly with sunset. Dolmans were interesting. Surprised by the number of people and cars. Good narrative, as always. Personally, would not be keen on walking those narrow country roads and paths in the dark. But, a good day out🎉
Thanks L&J! I had been to the Rollright Stones once before as mentioned in the video and there were a fair few people coming and going that time, but this trip was even busier - perhaps because it was a Saturday? I don't mind walking along footpaths in the fading light - I usually carry a head torch just in case - but yes the roads can sometime be a bit worrying. It depends on the road a bit - if they're wide and/or have good verges to leap onto it's usually isn't really a problem.
Lovely video! The stones looked cool (except for those horrific circular, spiky, fences around some of them). That German food looked perfectly edible, well done for not turning back when faced with the muddy tracks! You squeezed in a song towards the end too - and you can hold a decent note also! Wine, as ever, looked exquisite as did our host. Think I’ve covered all bases there, thanks John!
It feels like spring! (Later), it’s a bit chilly. It is definitely a longer day now, though and that has lifted my spirits. I’ve never been there but your mentioning of a county boundary caught my attention. I like the man-just-striking-out-and-showing-us-how-he-got-on style of videography.
I thought of you when reading about the toponymy for Rollright, and Richard Coates' suggestion that it derives from the Welsh "rodland rïx", although it does seem like quite a leap phonetically - any thoughts on that?
@@tweedyoutdoors Who am I to argue with such gentlemen and scholars? I would say, however, it sounds English. Very often pre-English names sound special, I always give the example of Calne, a native English speaker has to be told how to say it which is a damn good indicator it is authentically old old. But that isn’t a rule, the charters give the best indication and the English Place Name Survey or Ekwall’s Dict. of Eng. Placenames will give you the date of the early references in charters. It is not always 100% and I find some of the commentary impenetrable and/or misleading. The entry on Speen seems to say the opposite of what it is saying.
Looking forward to viewing/hearing your guest appearance on Wessex Ways. Woohoo! I’ll get a bottle in, but not sure I can afford a Gevrey Chambertin. My local co-op does an OK Languedoc, sorry not sorry. Re: not lingering. I always find the Rollrights slightly unsettling: not overtly spooky, just don’t feel encouraged to hang around (even though I’ve made a deliberate trip to be there)… unlike Avebury, where I’ll happily lounge on the banks, listening to the jackdaws, until… crikey, is that the time?! Lichen subscribe? *groan*
Thanks Barry! It was a fun experience being on the Wessex Ways podcast but as I mentioned in this video I don't think it was my finest bit of speaking! Lots of umming and erring. Hopefully the points I was trying to make still come across if listeners are patient enough to sit through all those conversation fillers! Yes I feel the same at Avebury - much more inclined to linger there... and if the appeal of the stones ever wanes there's always the pub!
Loved this, your videos are so comforting to watch. I visited the Rollright Stones for the first time this Summer, for sunrise very early so there was no one else about which was wonderful. I camped at a nearby campsite which was the closest it gets to wild camping without wild camping (had too much stuff with me that time). Wondering when you filmed this? If it's very recent, pagans could have maybe been there for Imbolc? Anyway, great stuff as usual Tweedy, thank you!
Thank you! It was filmed yesterday, so maybe you're right about Imbolc, given the "official" date (who exactly decides that?) would fall midweek...? I am curious and slightly fascinated by how these groups organise themselves - particularly for events like equinoxes and solstices which aren't on fixed calendar dates, and if, say, the exact moment of a winter solstice falls at, say, midnight, who decides whether it's dawn of the previous or following day which is the key moment to celebrate? For Stonehenge it bizarrely seems to have fallen to English Heritage to make that decision, but for Avebury it appears to be a bit more anarchic!
@@tweedyoutdoors I think if people are in a group (I used to be) they'll decide which date is right for them, depending on how strict they want to be with astronomical movements, and how flexible they want to be around personal availability of group participants. Most I know, celebrate roughly around the day that's marked traditionally, Imbolc being 31st/1st for most people I think. Yes Stonehenge is very restricted and 'managed' but Avebury is still more free with constant access, so people can go whenever they want. Happy Imbolc! 😊🌱
Westmark is the manufacturer I believe, and it's a "Monopol edition" (no idea what that means) - if you Google for "westmark wine prongs" you should be able to find it.
As I resident of the southern edge of the Cotswolds you are unfortunately quite correct regarding the majority of pubs. The first question upon arrival will not be "What would you like to drink Sir/Madam" but "Will you be eating with us today Sir/Madam". An answer in the negative relegates you to second class status for the rest of your visit.
They are all decorated the same, all serve the same overpriced food and all charge daft money for pub classics. Your fish and chips will be a twenty quid (Insert local craft brewery beer here) battered haddock with triple cooked chips (just do it right the first time) and "home made" mushy peas for a fiver extra. You will be offered "A trio of local sausages" with buttered mashed potatoes and a red onion jus, just call it gravy and don't charge me eighteen quid, veg once again an expensive add-on. Your Caesar salad will require an extra fiver if you want chicken. The vegetarian option will be an afterthought, usually mushroom risotto or pasta.
The thing that really winds me up working for a local supplier is the mismatch between what is offered on so many menus and what they are actually buying, but I want to keep my job so I'll leave it there!
There are a few good boozers amongst all this nonsense but they are getting harder to find. I think my local may be the only one in the region where your food options are crisps, nuts and pickled eggs! However it's full of friendly locals, shows the footy and has a real community spirit.
Rant over, loving your work Tweedy!
" Lichen Subscribe " (16:36 ) bud-dum...tiss ! - I'm still chortling !
Wonderful countryside; a location that isn't too far from me yet has so far eluded me. I always admire your lack of urgency as the sun goes down, appreciating the sunset with a glass of wine whereas many of us would be anxious about organising the way back. Thanks again for the mention- Wessex Ways will be out soon and it was an utter pleasure having you on.
Thanks Hedley! I think a lot of the Cotswolds is more "gentle" scenery than the comparative drama of the North Wessex Downs (or indeed South Downs) but it's a different atmosphere and nice in its own way. Sort of related to what we were discussing on Tuesday, I love being outdoors in the fading light! It shows a very different aspect of the landscape, and creates a very different atmosphere. In a weird way I also quite enjoy figuring out the transport logistics of how to get home - it was especially satisfying how well that worked on this occasion.
Tweedy your forays into the countryside are always fun and informative to watch. Excellent.
Thank you Rob, really appreciated!
I have watched all your pub videos and now arrived here. Lovely video. Quite sure that I shall enjoy the rest.
Hi John. Such an entertaining video. The food looked delicious and definitely something I would try myself. Kudos to you for navigating through such muddy paths. The stone circle is unknown to me. How could I be in my 7th decade and be unaware of their existence. Thank you for continually enlightening me. 👏👏👍😀
Brilliant, I think we stopped at that spot too for quite a while when we looked at that line. Maybe 3 years back? Yet to visit the stones, but certainly on the list!
Thank Paul! Perhaps a bit outside your normal stomping ground but this outing did feel like it might have been your cup of tea with the combination of the dismantled railway and then the ancient history.
Hello Tweedy, isn't it such a lovely way to approach your destination on foot, so much nicer than arriving by car. You really appreciate the setting and the beautiful countryside. I really enjoyed that video 😊
Nice to see. i used to be a warden at the stones 20 odd years ago!
A great video - real fun for me to watch and obviously for you to walk!
Love that Tweedy thanks 👍
Fascinating Mr Tweedy, you must have walked miles to include all those places. Lots of history in the route including an old railway line too, lovely :) Cheers, Warren
Thanks Warren! My phone tells me I walked about 12 miles in total. It's a shame that old railway line wasn't converted to make a footpath / track as some of them have been - it would have made some stretches of this walk more direct.
Nice little adventure. Cheers Tweedy!
Käsespätzle. I have not eaten that for a long long time. I used to go to Zug for work many times. Käsespätzle was one of my favourite meals. I have a case of that wine! lol I was actually thinking of opening a bottle today!
I used to bring back zuger kirschtorte. I lovely dessert. funny story (from the 90's). I bought a zuger kirschtorte to bring home and the local shop in Zug really put a lot of kirsch in them. so you HAD to carry them horizontally. I had this in my briefcase and when I went through customs in Zurich, I was carrying my briefcase horizontally in my arms and just said to the officer 'zuger kirschtorte' he went 'AH' and let me through!! No way these days! lol.Edit: looked the cake up and this is the shop I bought it from!! "Pastry chef Heinrich Höhn invented the cake 1921 in the city of Zug"
That's a delightful anecdote Alan! I too used to go to that area now and again for work (Zurich rather than Zug) and always enjoyed the food there.
I think the "Dames Huguettes" from Gavignet is very good. It was young as well - a 2021 - Tom was saying he thinks many of his 2021s are in better shape than the 2020s.
@@tweedyoutdoors Interesting. I might order some more! lol
@@tweedyoutdoors It always made me smile that you caught a 'zug' (train) to Zug in the canton of Zug on the shore of lake Zug!! lol
Hi, a wonderful walk from start to finish!!
Lunch on disused railway land👌👌, Paul will be proud of you!!
I wouldn't consider your last outing a failed meal, I prefer my vegetables to have some crunch or am often quite happy if they are raw.
No wonder you got to the stones so quickly you didn't open your wine till you got there!! Mind you you had to battle through the mud too.
And I was wondering how on earth are you were going to get home but it all worked like clockwork.
The evening sky was magnificent too no need for the sunset.
A great walk, well done. Have a great week!!
Looking forward to the battle of the wafflers in the Wessex Way Podcast😅😅
I really love the sense of adventure watching your videos, never a feeling that everything is planned down to the last script point. Wine, stones, sunset - what more could one ask for. Thank you.
Thanks Chris! Yes this one was very much planned as I went along - I decided to get the train to Kingham about five minutes before it left Paddington, and then figured out all the other transport logistics while I was out on the walk. I was very pleased by how well it worked out, considering!
Thanks for a nice muddy video, these are really interesting and I like seeing all these ancient sites. 👍
Thanks Ysgolgerlan! It is an interesting site I just wish it didn't have a car park right next to it!
The Whispering Knights are my favourite monument there, out of the 3. I don’t know why! The chap in the technicolour coat seemed to be enjoying them too.
The Rollright Stones are lovely, of course, but the first time I went there I was disappointed by their proximity to a busy road. And there’s a reason for that…
When they filmed Doctor Who there in the late 70s they actually closed the road, so you got no sense of it being there.
The food looked fabulous again. Another dish I’ve never heard of and must try.
Yes I know what you mean about the Whispering Knights. It's a little bit hard to take the King's Men (the stone circle) seriously given the height of the stones - I am ever so slightly reminded of that sequence in This is Spinal Tap! It's completely irrational but I want standing stones to be at least as tall as me or they just don't seem like megaliths. More like mesoliths.
...and yes the proximity to the road is unfortunate. Unfortunately this seems to be a fate shared by all the major stone circles of Southern England! Perhaps Stanton Drew is the most peaceful of the most well known handful.
I suspect most people in Germany/Switzerland would make spätzle from scratch at home rather than buying them in a bag like I did. I have done that once or twice, and the recipe is fairly simple but it's very messy! These ready made ones aren't easy to find - I used to go do a German deli in London for them, unfortunately that closed down, but I was pleased to find some in Eataly, the Italian food shop the other day. I do think this makes a lot of sense as a form of pasta like food in a camping / outdoor cooking context as you can pan fry them, so you don't need to carry a load of extra water which you're going to end up throwing away!
@@tweedyoutdoors I think I was put in mind of the Spinal Tap sequence when I first visited! The King’s Men are at least 3 times the size of Casterton Circle stones that I viewed from afar last week!
Awesome video thanks tweedy 😎
You missed the cold war bunker in a field next to the stones. Back in the day on occasion you could see uniformed people suddenly appearing from it. Dont know if they are still there but there used to be massive concrete towers, possibly fortified, with microwave dishes as part of some sort of military communication network running slong that part of the world. The landowner was up in arms over signs pointing to the stones and regularly defaced them. This was all back in the 80's. Fun times.
Wow I had no idea! It's already quite a surreal sight but that's a whole extra dimension to it!
@@tweedyoutdoors
ua-cam.com/video/48dI_EiSGRU/v-deo.htmlsi=9nmLU5HNuxmU0fFP
One of these things in near by field. The black thing with north south east west held photographic film that would aid in measuring direction and yield of a nuclear explosion. All very crude.
Really enjoyed the locations, particularly with sunset. Dolmans were interesting. Surprised by the number of people and cars. Good narrative, as always. Personally, would not be keen on walking those narrow country roads and paths in the dark. But, a good day out🎉
Thanks L&J! I had been to the Rollright Stones once before as mentioned in the video and there were a fair few people coming and going that time, but this trip was even busier - perhaps because it was a Saturday? I don't mind walking along footpaths in the fading light - I usually carry a head torch just in case - but yes the roads can sometime be a bit worrying. It depends on the road a bit - if they're wide and/or have good verges to leap onto it's usually isn't really a problem.
@@tweedyoutdoors “ verges to leap onto”😂
Lovely video! The stones looked cool (except for those horrific circular, spiky, fences around some of them). That German food looked perfectly edible, well done for not turning back when faced with the muddy tracks! You squeezed in a song towards the end too - and you can hold a decent note also! Wine, as ever, looked exquisite as did our host. Think I’ve covered all bases there, thanks John!
Thanks for that comprehensive review Seán!
It feels like spring! (Later), it’s a bit chilly. It is definitely a longer day now, though and that has lifted my spirits. I’ve never been there but your mentioning of a county boundary caught my attention. I like the man-just-striking-out-and-showing-us-how-he-got-on style of videography.
I thought of you when reading about the toponymy for Rollright, and Richard Coates' suggestion that it derives from the Welsh "rodland rïx", although it does seem like quite a leap phonetically - any thoughts on that?
@@tweedyoutdoors Who am I to argue with such gentlemen and scholars? I would say, however, it sounds English. Very often pre-English names sound special, I always give the example of Calne, a native English speaker has to be told how to say it which is a damn good indicator it is authentically old old. But that isn’t a rule, the charters give the best indication and the English Place Name Survey or Ekwall’s Dict. of Eng. Placenames will give you the date of the early references in charters. It is not always 100% and I find some of the commentary impenetrable and/or misleading. The entry on Speen seems to say the opposite of what it is saying.
@@tweedyoutdoors is Coates’s argument for this available on-line? I’m curious.
@@AllotmentFox I was just citing the Wikipedia page on the Rollright Stones.
Looking forward to viewing/hearing your guest appearance on Wessex Ways. Woohoo! I’ll get a bottle in, but not sure I can afford a Gevrey Chambertin. My local co-op does an OK Languedoc, sorry not sorry.
Re: not lingering. I always find the Rollrights slightly unsettling: not overtly spooky, just don’t feel encouraged to hang around (even though I’ve made a deliberate trip to be there)… unlike Avebury, where I’ll happily lounge on the banks, listening to the jackdaws, until… crikey, is that the time?!
Lichen subscribe? *groan*
Thanks Barry! It was a fun experience being on the Wessex Ways podcast but as I mentioned in this video I don't think it was my finest bit of speaking! Lots of umming and erring. Hopefully the points I was trying to make still come across if listeners are patient enough to sit through all those conversation fillers!
Yes I feel the same at Avebury - much more inclined to linger there... and if the appeal of the stones ever wanes there's always the pub!
Very entertaining (again) 😂
Thank you!
Loved this, your videos are so comforting to watch. I visited the Rollright Stones for the first time this Summer, for sunrise very early so there was no one else about which was wonderful. I camped at a nearby campsite which was the closest it gets to wild camping without wild camping (had too much stuff with me that time). Wondering when you filmed this? If it's very recent, pagans could have maybe been there for Imbolc? Anyway, great stuff as usual Tweedy, thank you!
Thank you! It was filmed yesterday, so maybe you're right about Imbolc, given the "official" date (who exactly decides that?) would fall midweek...? I am curious and slightly fascinated by how these groups organise themselves - particularly for events like equinoxes and solstices which aren't on fixed calendar dates, and if, say, the exact moment of a winter solstice falls at, say, midnight, who decides whether it's dawn of the previous or following day which is the key moment to celebrate? For Stonehenge it bizarrely seems to have fallen to English Heritage to make that decision, but for Avebury it appears to be a bit more anarchic!
@@tweedyoutdoors I think if people are in a group (I used to be) they'll decide which date is right for them, depending on how strict they want to be with astronomical movements, and how flexible they want to be around personal availability of group participants. Most I know, celebrate roughly around the day that's marked traditionally, Imbolc being 31st/1st for most people I think. Yes Stonehenge is very restricted and 'managed' but Avebury is still more free with constant access, so people can go whenever they want. Happy Imbolc! 😊🌱
Evening Sir. What make is your wine puller please?
Westmark is the manufacturer I believe, and it's a "Monopol edition" (no idea what that means) - if you Google for "westmark wine prongs" you should be able to find it.