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Cirencester Hotels in Cirencester, Cotswold with discounts and special offers
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On the southern fringes of the Cotswolds, CIRENCESTER makes a refreshing change from its more gentrified neighbours, steering clear of the "olde-worlde" image that many Cotswold towns have embraced. Under the Romans, the town was called Corinium and ranked second only to Londinium in size and importance. A provincial capital and a centre of trade, it flourished for three centuries and had one of the largest forums north of the Alps. Few Roman remains are visible in Cirencester itself thanks to the destruction meted out by the Saxons in the sixth century. The new occupiers built an abbey (the longest in England at the time), but the town's prosperity was restored only with the wool boom of the Middle Ages, when the wealth of local merchants financed the construction of one of the finest Perpendicular churches in England. Cirencester has survived as one of the most affluent towns in the area, hence the much-vaunted title "Capital of the Cotswolds".
Cirencester's heart is the Market Place , on Mondays and Fridays packed with traders' stalls. An irregular line of eighteenth-century facades along the north side contrasts with the heavier Victorian structures opposite, but the parish church of St John the Baptist , built in stages during the fifteenth century, dominates. The extraordinary flying buttresses which support the tower had to be added when it transpired that the church had been constructed upon a filled-in ditch. Its grand three-tiered south porch, the largest in England - big enough to function as the town hall at one stage - leads to the nave, where slender piers and soaring arches create a wonderful sense of space, enhanced by clerestory windows that bathe the nave in a warm light. The church contains much of interest, including a colourful wineglass pulpit , carved in stone in around 1450 and one of the few pre-Reformation pulpits to have survived in Britain. North of the chancel, superb fan vaulting hangs overhead in the chapel of St Catherine , who appears in a still vivid fragment of a fifteenth-century wall painting. In the adjacent Lady Chapel , look out for two good seventeenth-century monuments. Outside, one of the best views of the church is from the Abbey Grounds; site of the Saxon abbey, it's now a small park skirted by the modest river Churn and a fragment of the Roman city wall. National Express Coaches operates coach services from Cirencester to a number of cities. Directions from Richmond to Cirencester by car Cirencester is about 90 miles by car from Richmond upon Thames. From Richmond take the M4. Leave the M4 at junction 15 (signposted Marlborough, Swindon), then at roundabout take the 3rd exit onto Marlborough Road - A419 (signposted Swindon, Cirencester A419, Oxford A420) At Commonhead roundabout take the 2nd exit onto the A419 (signposted Cirencester, Oxford) Entering Swindon. At Turnpike roundabout take the 2nd exit onto the A419 (signposted Cirencester, Stow) . Continue forward onto the A417. Branch left (signposted Cirencester, Stow), then at roundabout take the 1st exit onto Burford Road - A429 (signposted Cirencester). Turn left onto London Road - A417 (signposted Lechlade) Entering Cirencester. |
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Fleece Hotel, Market Place, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 2NZ
Hotel Lespa, Stratton Place, Gloucester Road, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 2LA Best Western Stratton House Hotel, Gloucester Road, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 2LE Swan Classic Bibury, Bibury, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 5NW |
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