by In Cowley Manor’s elegant, wood-paneled restaurant, waitress Maria Radu runs me through the culinary whims of French diners. “They love local products like grass-fed beef – that’s why we have côte de boeuf and burgers on the menu,” she says. “And they are excited to get a crudité of seasonal root vegetables because the quality of the Cotswolds produce is the most important thing to the French. That, and the fact that they know our brand.”
Cowley Manor’s new owner is Experimental, a trendy French hospitality group that started life as a modest cocktail bar on Rue Saint-Sauveur in Paris. Still headquartered in Paris, the group now includes nine cocktail bars, a glitzy Swiss nightclub and luxury hotels in outposts beloved by Europe’s glitterati: Venice, Ibiza, Verbier, New York, London and Biarritz.
Cowley Manor, a 19th-century manor house a few miles from Cheltenham, is his latest acquisition and a sign of the overseas market’s faith in a region once known for its wax jackets and Land Rovers.
After a six-month £7 million renovation, Cowley Manor Experimental is an English country house that serves up continental Italian and French designer furniture, a metropolitan cocktail bar and arts and crafts-style wallpaper and carpets with playing card motifs, an Alice in Wonderland nod inspired by the woodland follies of the manor.
The village of Lacock and Lacock Abbey, which stood outside the titular character’s childhood home at Godric’s Hollow and Hogwarts school respectively in the Harry Potter films, have been a draw in southern Europe for a decade, says Chris Jackson of Cotswold Tourism.
The new crop is smaller than the Potter crowd, more well-heeled travelers are being drawn to the Cotswolds to get a taste of quintessential Britishness and to escape the summer heatwaves of southern Europe, he explains. “They like the built environment: the old buildings with cozy little rooms, pubs and experiences [such as afternoon tea]. Although they are often caught by how early we eat: most restaurants in Spain would still be preparing to open by the time the English have finished their orders!”
“Cotswolds estate agents are seeing an increase in inquiries from second home buyers from southern Europe”, says Gemma Maclaran, Cotswolds expert at Middleton Advisors. “[Southern European buyers] they’re usually looking for nice, traditional Cotswolds houses,” she says. “French buyers particularly go for Georgian property. The high ceilings and well-proportioned rooms are probably Parisian.”
At the Cotswold Cheese Company’s outpost in Moreton-in-Marsh, tourists are sheltering from the rain while a dog snarls unhappily from its banishment at the door. At the counter, the Martha and Halias team are doing a brisk trade in Comte, Brie de Meaux and Spanish olives.
The shop has seen an increase in French, Spanish and Italian tourists in the past two years, says Martha, although they prefer local delights such as Ashcome and Rollright cheeses, the latter a washed rind made in Chedworth and inspired by the Vacherin Mont of France. d’Or. “When he’s in Rome, I think,” says Martha, although she adds: “tourists in Airbnbs might add pecorino to their pasta”.
Marie Faure-Ambroise, 44, is a Parisian socialite and digital marketer who runs the blog My Travel Dreams. A regular visitor to the Cotswolds, Faure-Ambroise enjoys “the extra-large cheddar-grated potatoes and local sausages” served in foodie boozers such as the Bell at Sapperton and the Kings Head Inn in Bledington, as well as “jumpers to buy wool” in the rural region. She says her fellow French nationals have historically been aware of the images of Cotswolds honey stone cottages but not the name Cotswolds, although this is changing.
“It’s becoming a destination even for those who drive all the way from Paris,” she continues. “The French people love the spirit and the carte postale look of this procession far from us [busy cities] and noise.” Faure-Ambroise tells people that the Cotswolds are “like living [out an] An English film cliché: putting your Barbour and Hunter wellies on in the rain village”.
Novelist Cristina Marconi was the UK correspondent for the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero from 2007 to 2020. Now based in Milan, Marconi says busy Italians can’t get enough of the Cotswolds. “There’s a long tradition of Anglomania among the upper classes here,” she explains. In Marconi’s case, period dramas such as Downton Abbey gave Italians the impression that the sound of ripped bodices is characteristic of the English countryside. “The English countryside seems exciting compared to the Italian countryside and not just the theater of sleepy provincial life.”
Meanwhile Laia Díaz, 36, a journalist from Tarragona says: “I think a lot of Spaniards visit the Cotswolds these days because images of very nice towns have gone viral on social media, even though it’s a very expensive place is to visit Spanish. people. I love Castle Combe and Lower Slaughter, which feels like immersing myself in a Jane Austen novel. In Catalonia there are some very nice towns, but we don’t have one beautiful town next to another like in the Cotswolds.”
Among the itineraries offered by tour companies in southern Europe for 2024 is the Spanish market leader Catai Complete London’s five-day tour, which highlights the capital’s attractions alongside Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon and “la Venecia de los Cotswolds”, Bourton-on-the-water. Meanwhile Italian package provider Viaggi Avventure Nel Mondo’s Celtic Family Short loop from London to Cornwall, Wales and back to the capital via the Cotswolds.
At Hotel du Vin in Cheltenham, one of the chain’s early market-town properties and set in a three-storey Georgian townhouse, a 50-something French couple puzzle over a menu that offers afternoon tea with finger sandwiches alongside French bistro classics such as chicken liver . parfait and beef provençale. Yves and Aurelie are disappointed, they admit, to find no local plug on the hotel’s extensive wine list.
“We had English sparkling wine from [Cotswolds vineyard] Woodchester Valley yesterday,” Yves tells me. “Your wine was quite a story, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, but it was very good.” “Even though it’s not champagne, but still,” says Aurelie.
Cowley Manor Experimental ( 01242 870900) offers doubles from £265 B&B. Hotel du Vin Cheltenham (01242 370584) offers doubles from £126 B&B.
