Minster Lovell is a village and civil parish sited on the River Windrush about 2.5 miles west of Witney in Oxfordshire.

Minster Lovell is actually comprised of three parts – Old Minster, Little Minster and New Minster.

Old Minster includes the Church of England parish church of Saint Kenelm, the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall and the Mill and Old Swan Inn.

A large part of New Minster is the Charterville Allotments, which were founded by the Chartists in 1847-52.

It is the third and largest of the Chartist estates with 300 acres divided into 80 smallholdings with small cottages.

The main village thoroughfare is a single street with numerous pretty thatched cottages beside a small stream.

There is also a popular cricket pitch beside the river Windrush and an old stone bridge where you can sit and watch the abundant wildlife.

Everything that man has constructed started with a simple inner vision or a dream. Dreams are important because they are the seed of a mighty creative force that we should harness in order to turn our dreams into reality.

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Take a short walk along the banks of the River Coln at Bibury Court Hotel and you will soon come to a gorgeous old stone bridge beside a weir where willow trees cast their shade over the shallow but crystal clear trout stream.

Across the bridge is a jumble of honey coloured stone houses including an old water mill (not to be confused with the famous Arlington Mill in Bibury village).

Now fallen into disuse the old mill seems to be totally integrated into the verdant foliage that surrounds it and is reminiscent of a Constable oil painting.

The setting is idyllic and the sounds of nature on a summer’s day make it the perfect get-away-from-it-all spot – until the draw of a cream tea back at Bibury Court Hotel calls you back to reality!

This really is the ideal place to truly look around at the wonders of the natural world and see the beauty of the world we live in and to treasure every moment.

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Buscot Lock is a quaint spot on the upper Thames much loved by the boating fraternity being the smallest of the 45 locks on the Thames.

The manual beam-equipped pound lock was built in 1790, although today it looks just as it did more than 200 years ago.

Before the lock was built, there was a flash weir, where boats would ‘run the rapids’ downstream though today transitioning the lock is a much more sedate affair.

The lock was purchased as part of the Edward Loveden family estate in 1859 by Robert Tertius Campbell with money acquired in the Australian goldfields.

He fitted water wheels to irrigate his estate, but sold up within 10 years. Later owners, Thomas Cook, the travel agents, gave the site to The National Trust.

Today it is a popular place for walkers, fishermen and narrow boat enthusiasts with well tended gardens and a wonderful sense of tranquillity.

Being a Lock-keeper might seem a lonely existence until you start thinking about the benefits. If you are someone who has learned the secret of depending on no-one but yourself then you are in possession of a powerful and resourceful tool that can change lives.

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The village of Little Barrington is somewhere you discover by happy accident.

It is a small, peaceful village off the beaten track with a timeless charm.

It is best known as the home of the Strong family who were master masons and suppliers of limestone for some of the finest houses in the Cotswolds.

It was Thomas Strong , under the direction of Christopher Wren, who laid the foundation stone at St. Pauls Cathedral in London.

The honey coloured Cotswold stone that was used come from a large natural depression in the centre of the village where a natural spring wells from the limestone creating a small stream that feeds the River Windrush.

The village cottages form a large oval around the rim of the depression broken only by the road and the stream running through down to the popular riverside pub – The Fox Inn.

This beautiful setting inspires us to believe in ourselves and to follow our own personal dreams, whatever they might be, for with enough vision and perseverance anything is possible.

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Swinbrook is a quiet Cotswold village just a few miles from Burford, famous for the striking 17th century Fettiplace Monuments in the small church. It is a tranquil, unspoilt village with many pretty cottages of warm-toned stone. There is a village pub beside the stunning River Windrush, an ancient bridge and a lovely cricket pitch.

A very small green sits before the village hall and a few steps up the road from the hall, a set of stairs leads up to the small parish church of St Mary the Virgin.

Beyond the church is the grave of novelist Nancy Mitford, author of “Love in a Cold Climate“. But it is within this unpretentious exterior that real delight awaits the visitor.

The holders of the manor of Swinbrook during the 17th century were the Fettiplace family, who were at that time one of the biggest landowning families in Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

The Fettiplaces left a set of two striking wall tombs for posterity. Each tomb shows three male Fettiplaces, recumbent,and looking anything but comfortable, upon stone or marble shelves. Both tombs date to the 17th century.

Swinbrook village is the archetypal English village where people have worked, rested and played for centuries and continue to do so to this day.

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This spot has been a place of Christian worship for over 1300 years since Osric, an Anglo Saxon prince founded the site of the cathedral in 678 AD.

By 1066 there was a thriving monastery here which by 1089 was being extended to the magnificent abbey church we see today.

In 1216 Henry the Third was crowned here and in 1541 the Abbey church became a cathedral after extensive building alterations.

Set in a beautiful square in the heart of the county town of Gloucester the stonework and carvings are magnificent and provide the perfect sanctuary from the busy town centre just a few yards away.

This tranquil spot oozes a sense of spirituality and spirituality should be an essential part of everyone’s lives regardless of religion, culture or creed.

Spirituality is all about connecting to forces that are bigger than all of us and recognising the small part each of us plays in the bigger scheme of things.

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Bibury Court Hotel is a stunning eighteen bedroom Jacobean Mansion that dates from Tudor times.

Set in six acres of beautiful gardens a stone’s throw from Bibury village and with the trout-rich river Coln flowing through its grounds Bibury Court Hotel is the perfect place for a cream tea or a stroll beside the river.

With a popular restaurant that won the Cotswold Life magazine ‘Restaurant of the Year’ award in 2007 and the perfect rural location it is a true Cotswold gem.

This wonderful building is the epitome of architectural perspective and balance and serves to remind us of how important it is to bring perspective and balance into our own lives.

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Between the pretty village of Minster Lovell and the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall beside the river Windrush stands the iconic Minster Lovell Dovecote.

This splendid example of a medieval dovecote has survived the centuries better than the main hall and is today complete with hundreds of nesting boxes in which doves and pigeons were raised to provide a regular supply of food for the tables of the lords and ladies of Minster Hall.

Standing beside rolling pastures the ancient dovecote has a peaceful and timeless feel to it and is the perfect picnic spot with the river nearby and the ruins to explore.

The people that built this wonderful dovecote were clearly planning ahead and that is a lesson we can all learn in our lives.

Planning ahead means we are in control of our circumstances rather than a victim of them.

(Click here to read the Tip we recoded at Minster Lovell Hall)

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For 25 years the Christmas shop in Lechlade has been delighting both adults and children in its beautiful ‘Aladdin’s Cave‘ of Christmas gifts and decorations.

With decorations made in different parts of Europe, but mostly traditionally German, there are so many wonderful things to explore that the shop evokes the spirit of Christmas all year long.

Attracting visitors from all over the world this amazing shop located within the sleepy Cotswold town of Lechlade on the upper Thames is the perfect place to while away your time and stock up on some unique and very special gifts.

Running a shop all year round that specialises in Christmas might seem a rather daring business venture but this shop shows that by opening your mind to all possibilities almost anything can be achieved!

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Burford is the quintessential Cotswold town that often comes out in surveys as being one of the desirable places to live in the UK.

It has an idyllic setting with the town gently rising uphill from the banks of the River Windrush with lovely shops to explore and many hidden treasures to stumble upon.

It was the wool of the Cotswolds that brought the town its medieval prosperity and was one of the leading centres of the wool market in the fifteenth century.

Throughout the centuries, whereas lots of similar towns were slowly modernised, Burford has managed to retain its medieval beauty and charm and now is one of the tourist ‘must see’ spots in the Cotswolds.

The Norman church is well worth exploring and is rated as one of the top ten churches in the country, once the spot of a Cromwellian uprising.

Today with its lovely Inns, alms houses, interesting shops, town walks and antique markets there are few places that can compete with this wonderful town.

Towns like Burford ooze history and by taking the time to find out and learn more about the places we visit the more we enrich our lives.

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