In Cowley Manor’s elegant, wood-paneled restaurant, waitress Maria Radu tells me about the culinary whims of her French customers. “They love local produce like grass-fed beef, so cote de boeuf and burgers are on the menu,” she says. “And they are delighted to be given a raw crop of seasonal root vegetables because the quality of 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 Paris’ Rue Saint-Sauveur. Still headquartered in Paris, the group now includes nine cocktail bars, a swanky 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 its latest acquisition and demonstrates the confidence of the overseas market in a region once known for its wax jackets and Land Rovers.
Following a six-month £7 million renovation, Cowley Manor Experimental is a continental-meets-English country house mix of Italian and French designer furniture, big-city cocktail bar and arts-and-crafts-style wallpapers and tapestries. Playing card motifs reference Alice in Wonderland, inspired by the woodland madness of the manor.
Cotswold Tourism’s Chris Jackson says the village of Lacock and Lacock Abbey, which represent the exterior of the main character’s childhood home at Godric’s Hollow and Hogwarts school in the Harry Potter films respectively, have been attracting the attention of southern Europeans for a decade.
The new crop, he explains, are less of the Potter crowd and more well-off travelers drawn to the Cotswolds for a taste of typical Britishness and to escape the summer heatwaves of Southern Europe. “What attracts them is the built environment: old buildings with their cozy little rooms, bars and experiences [such as afternoon tea]. They often notice how early we eat though: most restaurants in Spain are still getting ready to open by the time the British restaurants finish taking orders!”
“Cotswolds estate agents are seeing an increase in inquiries from southern European second home buyers,” says Middleton Advisors Cotswolds expert Gemma Maclaran. “[Southern European buyers] “They are often looking for very traditional, beautiful Cotswolds homes,” he says. “French buyers are particularly attracted to Georgian properties. “High ceilings and well-proportioned rooms are very Parisian, I guess.”
At the Cotswold Cheese Company’s outpost in Moreton-in-Marsh, tourists shelter from the rain while a dog sniffs sadly at the gate at its banishment. Martha and Halias, who work at the counter, trade Comte, Brie de Meaux and Spanish olives.
Martha says the shop has seen more French, Spanish and Italian tourists in the last two years, but they prefer local delicacies such as washed-rind Ashcome and Rollright cheeses, made in Chedworth and inspired by the French Vacherin Mont. d’Or. “I guess when we’re in Rome,” Martha jokes, “tourists at Airbnb can buy some pecorino for 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 “buying woolen jumpers” as well as “large grated potatoes with cheddar and local sausages” served at eateries such as the Bell at Sapperton and Kings Head Inn Bledington. in rural area. He says French citizens were historically aware of images of honeystone Cotswolds cottages but not the name of the Cotswolds, but this is changing.
“It is becoming a frequent destination even for those who drive here from Paris,” he continues. “The French love the spirit of this paradise and the carte postal look. [busy cities] and noise.” Faure-Ambroise tells people the Cotswolds are ‘a place to live’ [out an] British movie cliché: putting on your Barbour and Hunter boots to walk through a rainy village.”
Novelist Cristina Marconi was the UK correspondent for the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero from 2007 to 2020. Marconi, who now lives in Milan, says wealthy Italians can’t get enough of the Cotswolds. “There’s a long tradition of Anglomania among the upper classes here,” she explains. According to Marconi, period dramas such as Downton Abbey gave Italians the impression that the sounds of the English countryside were the sound of torn bodices. “The English countryside seems exciting compared to the Italian countryside, and not just the theater of sleepy country life.”
Meanwhile, Laia Díaz, 36, a journalist from Tarragona, tells me: “I think a lot of Spaniards are visiting the Cotswolds these days because although it is a very expensive place for Spanish tourists to visit, images of very cute towns have gone viral on social media. “The people. I love Castle Combe and Lower Slaughter, which make me feel like I’m in a Jane Austen novel. There are lovely towns in Catalonia, but we don’t have beautiful towns next to each other like in the Cotswolds.”
Southern European tour companies’ itineraries for 2024 include Spanish market leader Catai’s five-day Full Tour covering Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon and “la Venecia de los Cotswolds”, Bourton-on-Avon as well as the capital’s attractions. Includes a tour of London. This. Italian package provider Viaggi Avventure Nel Mondo’s Celtic Family Short, meanwhile, runs from London to Cornwall, Wales and back to the capital via the Cotswolds.
At the Hotel du Vin, a three-storey Georgian townhouse in Cheltenham, one of the market town chain’s first properties, a French couple in their 50s are figuring out a menu that offers French bistro classics such as chicken livers, as well as afternoon tea with finger sandwiches. parfait and beef provençale. Yves and Aurelie admit they were disappointed to find nothing local on the hotel’s extensive wine list.
“We drank some sparkling English wine. [Cotswolds vineyard] Woodchester Valley yesterday,” Yves told me. “I’m sorry to say, your wine used to be a joke, but it was really good.” “Even though it’s not champagne yet,” adds Aurelie.
Cowley Manor Experimental (01242 870900) offers double accommodation from £265. Hotel du Vin Cheltenham (01242 370584) offers double accommodation from £126.