Population: 6,400
Eat at: Calcot Manor (01666 890391)
Why? Choose fine dining and country pub eating at its restaurants. Calcot Manor has a 14th-century pedigree, spa and bedroom suites.
Drink at: The Snooty Fox (01666 502436)
Why? With its cosy, stripped-back stone-faced walls, curved mahogany bar and leather chairs, the Snooty Fox feels every inch the country-town pub.
Stay at: The Ormond at Tetbury (01666 505690)
Why? Tumble out of one of the 21 stylishly decorated rooms downstairs to the top-class restaurant, where chef Mariusz Przeworski works his genius.
You can’t get more Cotswolds than Tetbury. With Chipping Steps, Gumstool Hill and Church Street setting the scene, it’s got some of the finest wool-wealth plus food-loving plus bonkers-traditions credentials of any Gloucestershire town. Tetbury exchanged wool trading for antique shops long ago, later building a reputation through its purveyors of fine foods. Long Street boasts both a Highgrove shop, selling Duchy of Cornwall and King Charles’s estate produce, and Jesse Smith’s butchers. A market sets up twice weekly in the 360-year-old Market House. Besides being Instagram famous, Market House is known for the two dolphins on its weather vane. The twin dolphin symbol appears in the town’s crest and features on many Tetbury club badges. Possibly copied from the de St Valery coat of arms, the family who held the manor of Tetbury for a while, they’re a curious sea-going association so far inland. Another curiosity is Tetbury’s church spire, which is one of the tallest in the country. The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop in Church Street is noteworthy for leading local literary goings-on.
Most noted for... Its slightly whacky workout at Whitsun, when volunteers run up Gumstool Hill carrying a 60lb (27kg) woolsack, though women get a lighter load – 35lb (16kg). (tetburywoolsack.co.uk)
While you’re here... Visit Westonbirt Arboretum. With 18,000 trees and five national tree collections, Westonbirt looks stunning whatever the season. There are 17km of footpaths in 600 acres of tree-covered landscape to wander in and wonder at. (forestry.gov.uk/westonbirt)
But try not to... Miss Chavenage House. Beloved of ghost hunters and location scouts alike, the manor appears on TV and film, most recently in Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse and notably as ‘Trenwith’ in Poldark. (chavenage.com)
Who’s who:
Jet Black, drummer and founder member of new wave band The Stranglers, lived just outside Tetbury. Mountaineer Jake Meyer, the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest, and a K2 conqueror, is also from Tetbury. Author Sir Laurens van der Post, Prince William’s godfather and a mentor to King Charles when he was a young prince, owned a farm near the town.
Right Royal
Highgrove House and estate is the country home of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, while the Princess Royal, lives at nearby Gatcombe Park. You can visit the grounds of both at specific times of year; the former by booking a tour of the garden, (highgrovegardens.com), the latter during the annual eventing festival in August. (festivalofbritisheventing.com)
