Читать книгу The Cotswold Way. NATIONAL TRAIL Two-way trail guide - Chipping Campden to Bath онлайн

31 страница из 57

Man in the landscape

A steep wedge of a sunken track takes the Cotswold Way between North Nibley and the Tyndale Monument (Stage 9, Southbound; Stage 5, Northbound)

Man in the landscape could well be the walk’s theme. As we have seen, the Cotswolds have no vast wilderness, no raw mountains or trackless moorland; it is not a countryside that threatens or bullies, but one that welcomes. Man has lived in harmony with nature for a long time here, using as a basic building material the very substance of the land, exhibiting a rare degree of artistry in the moulding of wall, doorway and crooked roof, until even the villages themselves appear to be an extension of that land, an integral part of the landscape.

Instead of shunning habitation, as do many other long-distance paths, the Cotswold Way actively seeks out the timeless villages and towns that are among the loveliest features of the region. But timeless though they may seem, they are only comparatively recent additions to a landscape that has been worked, in some form or another, for 5000 years and more.