Cotswold misfits and the leaking Leach

Abstract

Landscape tastes tend to vary over time. In the early 19th century, during the course of his Rural rides, William Cobbett dismissed the elegant spa town of Cheltenham that had grown up during the Regency as an abomination inhabited by some of the least salubrious types of crook and nouveau riche that one could find anywhere. He was scarcely more charitable about the range of hills that lie behind the town, namely the Cotswolds. He found them bleak and desolate, and could think of only one part of England that was scenically less appealing — the blasted heathlands of Surrey.