Bed and breakfast availability
Cirencester b&b, guesthouse and hotel accommodation

Visit Cirencester and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Cirencester, Gloucestershire, claims with some justification the title of Capital of the Cotswolds. It was certainly the capital of the Dobuni when as Corinium Dobunorum in A.D. 43 it became one of the chief Roman administrative centres for South-West England. By the 4^th century its situation at the hub of a network of Roman roads, the icknield Way, Ermine Street and Fosse Way, made it the second most important town in Britain. With the withdrawal of the legions, it went into a complete decline until a later Anglo-Saxon town was built. It slowly regained its prosperity with the development of sheep rearing on the rich Cotswold meadowlands surrounding the town. This was due to the industry of the monks who completed a great abbey church in the reign of Henry II. Dissolved by Henry VIII, nothing remains of this vast abbey other than the Spital Gateway, a late Norman construction which stands on the site of the northern end of the abbey precincts. Such was the tremendous wealth of the wool merchants in the 15th century that they were able to build one of the greatest “wool churches” in the kingdom. The Parish Church of St John the Baptist with its superb tower and three-storied fan-vaulted porch which faces the market place has been judged one of the most beautiful Perpendicular churches in England. The lofty nave is supported by six great arches on either side, and above these a tall clerestory with fine glass reaches to the richly bossed and panelled roof, sending down a flood of light. Both the east and west windows have rich medieval glass which reflects glowing colours on to the stone and woodwork below. The painted and gilded wine-glass pulpit is a very rare pre-Reformation example of this unusual design. There are many fine brasses of wool and wine merchants to be seen, particularly in the Lady Chapel. It is worth walking some distance from the church to appreciate the parapeting, embattlements and crocketed pinnacles which distinguish the skyline of Cirencester

Cirencester House, seat of the Earl of Bathurst, has a 3,000-acre park, complete with a charming folly built in 1721 by the 1st Earl of Bathurst aided by Alexander Pope. It is called Alfred's Hall, a buttressed, castellated false ruin satirizing every possible quirk of medieval building. Pope stayed here to recover from the ardours of translating the Iliad. A roofed rusticated stone seat on the edge of the avenues called the Seven Rides is named after him. Although the house is not open to the public, the park, with its superb 5-mile long avenue of chestnut trees can be enjoyed freely by everyone.

Nearby towns: Bibury, Brockworth, Cheltenham, Fairford, Malmesbury, Minchinhampton, Northleach, Painswick, Lechlade, Stroud, Swindon, Tetbury, Wootton Bassett

Nearby villages: Ampney Crucis, Ampney St. Mary, Ampney St. Peter, Ashton Keynes, Bibury, Brimpsfield, Castle Eaton, Chedworth, Coates, Colesborne, Coln Rogers, Cricklade, Crudwell, Daglingworth, Down Ampney, Driffield, Edgeworth, Elkstone, Ewen, Fairford, Hankerton, Kemble, Leigh, Marston Meysey, Meysey Hampton, Minety, Miserden, North Cerney, Oaksey, Purton Stoke, Quenington, Rodmarton, Sapperton, Siddington, Somerford Keynes, South Cerney, Syde, Winson, Yanworth

Have you decided to visit Cirencester or the surrounding villages? Please look above for somewhere to stay in:

• a Cirencester bed and breakfast (a Cirencester B&B or Cirencester b and b)
• a Cirencester guesthouse
• a Cirencester hotel (or motel)
• a Cirencester self-catering establishment, or
• other Cirencester accommodation