STOW-ON-THE-WOLD Stow-on-the-Wold lies 750 ft above sea level, just to the E of the Roman Fosse Way. The town, formerly known as 'Edwardstow', seems to partly occupy the site of an Iron Age hill-fort in the NW corner of the older parish of Maugersbury (q.v.); it was founded as a commercial enterprise by the abbey of Evesham in the mid C11. The market received its royal charter in 1107-8; this was confirmed in 1241. Its situation at a major road junction encouraged the abbey to plan a wide rectangular market place at the centre of a rough and slightly skew grid in an attempt to exploit its considerable commercial possibilities in the middle of the wool-producing Cotswolds. The growth of the town followed the relative prosperity of agriculture in general, the success of the local boot and shoe trade, and the wealth derived from its many inns. The walk begins at the Church of ST EDWARD (1), which has a good boundary wall, built in 1866, towards CHURCH STREET to the W of the Market Square. A large church, mostly of rubble, comprising chancel with n vestry, n transept, wide clerestoried nave, aisles, n and s porches, and a tower in the position of a S transept. This is of ashlar, as are the parapets which surround all the Cotswold stone roofs except that of the chancel; they give the church a deceptively Perp appearance, though the church is much earlier in origin. C12 work survives in the nave W wall and the interior reveals that the main features of the cruciform plan were established before the end of the C13. During the Civil War the church was used to confine prisoners, and in 1657 it was declared ruinous. It was restored in the 1680s, and again in 1846-7 by J.L. Pearson, his first church work outside the East Riding. There was further restoration in 1873. The Perp s tower was built possibly c.1445-7 on an earlier base. It has four stages separated by stringcourses, panelled battlements, gargoyles and square crocketed pinnacles. The chancel was rebuilt in the early C14 though its E window is by Pearson, 1854. C14 N & S two-light windows with simple Dec tracery; blocked chamfered priest's doorway in the S wall. C19 vestry and former organ chamber with C14 and C15 windows reset. The main E and the N window of the transept are C15, of four lights with Perp tracery under steep four-centred arches. The N porch is a C17-C18 addition and Gothic Survival; the almost architectural yew trees flanking the plain pointed arched doorway like the entrance to a grotto give it a romantic Strawberry Hill appearance. (For a full account of the interior see Gloucestershire 1: the Cotswolds.) In the churchyard, nw of the church, a small group of four C18 chest tombs, including three of 'bale' type. Next to the churchyard the masonic hall (6), formerly st edward's grammar school, rebuilt in 1594. It has two six-light mullioned windows with four-centred arched lights on the ground floor and three- or four-light similar windows above. Pedimented datestone with inscription. The MARKET SQUARE is just to the E of the church. Its huge size has been reduced by two separate encroachments of buildings on island sites, though some of its area was restored by early C20 demolitions. The town CROSS (7) now stands clear at its S end. It has a monolithic shaft set in a square socket broached into an octagon, a base, and two steps, which are all C15. The cross was restored by Medland & Son of Gloucester in 1878, when the gabled headstone was added. This was recut in 1995 by Richard Podd, to the designs of Colin Brand. The island block N of the cross is mostly C17-C18, but at its N end is a large Victorian Perp building also by Medland & Son, 1877-8, called ST EDWARD'S HALL with diagonal buttresses and a large upper hall or assembly room. The porch, with a statue of St Edward in a canopied niche, has a tall shingled spire added by the younger Medland in 1894. The block on the SW side, also intrudes into the original space of the square. Its most attractive building is the rather gauche st edward's house, probably of c. 1730, with full-height fluted Corinthian pilasters near the corners. The doorway has similar pilasters, continued above by raised strips with patterns of flowers; there is an arched niche on the first floor. Tradition holds that it was built and carved by a pargetter named Shepherd. The COTSWOLD BOOK SHOP, dated 1697, has quoins and mostly cross windows. CHELTENHAM HOUSE, next to a C17 house with a precariously leaning gable, is early C18, of four bays, with moulded architraves, but the ground floor is altered. Dormers with alternately triangular and segmental pediments. STOW LODGE HOTEL, once the rectory, stands back in its own garden beyond this island block. It is mostly C18, but has casements with unfortunate diamond-shaped panes of indeterminate date. The group further N is mostly C17-C18. The queen's head, with a heavily corbelled NE corner, and the good building next door, of four bays with cross windows, are both of c. 1700; the latter contains a good Tudor-arched fireplace with carved spandrels. The talbot, on the S side of the Market Square, established by 1714, was the town's largest hotel in 1900, also serving for a time as the town Corn Exchange. The present three-bay facade is of c. 1840, with continuous curved hood-moulds with small trefoils in the 'tympana'. TALBOT COURT behind is an attractive development of the former inn-yard with small-scale shops, c. 1990. Next door LLOYDS BANK, early C19, with windows with architraves and a parapet with moulded cornice. The KING'S ARMS, in the SE corner, together with the house next door, was an inn by 1647. It was reputed to be the best inn between London and Worcester. Large cross windows, and four unequal gables with verges and finials and oval windows with 'eyelids'. ROSS HOUSE, to the N, formerly the Plough Inn, is C17 with mullioned windows. Halfway along the E side is the WHITE HART HOTEL, established as an inn by 1698. Its faĦade is now mostly C18 with windows with moulded architraves. In the lane behind, approached through its carriageway entrance, the former FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE (4). Built in 1719, and now used as a Youth Hostel. It is of rubble and has been much altered, but blocked windows are visible in its end walls. In the NE corner of the Square there is a small green with the former STOCKS. The N side is again mostly C17-C18. The short HIGH STREET leaves the Market Square from its NW corner. On its W side the POLICE STATION AND PETTY SESSIONAL COURT (8), built in 1867 by James Medland, Gothic, with Geometrical tracery to the court-room. To the NE, in its own grounds, fosseway house (9), a mid-C19 hunting lodge, much enlarged c. 1870-80, possibly by Ewan Christian; large mullioned and transomed windows, half-timbered gables, and tall chimneys. In the garden, approached from Parson's Corner E of the High Street, is a folly of c. 1800, with an embattled tower like a small church, of rubble, with an ashlar parapet and quoins. By the Fosse Way, near the neo-Jacobean gatepiers, a DRINKING FOUNTAIN of 1896 by J.E.K. & J.P. Cutts, with troughs and ogee gables. SE of the Market Square is DIGBETH STREET. On the E side a small early C17 house with an arched stone doorway. On the opposite side a former malthouse from which the C13 doorway was removed to Maugersbury Manor in 1865. At the bottom of Digbeth Street the ROYALIST HOTEL, probably early C16, formerly an inn called the Eagle and Child. It may be on the site of a medieval hospice and is said to incorporate a much older oak-framed structure. The rear walls have close-set studding, now covered in roughcast, the five-bay roof an open-braced collar-beam truss. Tudor-arched fireplace and doorway. It was altered in 1615, the date on the porch, and now appears as a substantial Jacobean town house. The WESLEYAN CHAPEL (5), 1868 by K.W. Ladd of Pembroke Dock, is on the opposite side of a small green. Romanesque stone faĦade with a NE corner tower with a sprocketed pyramid roof. The brick side wall has the reset date-stone of the former chapel of 1814. Nearly opposite, on the S side of SHEEP STREET, is CHANTRY HOUSE of 1862. Its bow-fronted W end with quoins and flint and stone patterning was the office of the former Brewery. The BREWERY YARD has been converted to shops with some postmodern additions by Eastabrook Associates, c. 1990. Leading off Sheep Street, which was a kind of medieval by-pass to the Market Square, are several narrow alleyways called 'tures'. The arched passage adjoining JASMINE COTTAGE (dated 1769) leads S to the BAPTIST CHAPEL (3); Rebuilt 1852. Coursed rubble with ashlar dressings. Round-arched windows, hipped slate roof with projecting eaves. The interior, with 'W' gallery, refitted in 1892. Schoolrooms enlarged in 1884 and 1888. Beyond its graveyard, in BACK WALLS, is the small r.c. church of our LADY AND ST KENELM (2) Stone, converted in 1918 from a former C.E. Infant School of 1836. Council housing fills the S side of Back Walls, two roughcast groups of 1920 by Chatters, Smithson & Rainger for Stow U.D.C. contrasting with the large PARK ESTATE further E, all of stone c. 1951 by Thomas Rayson of Oxford for North Cotswold R.D.C. At its W end Back Walls emerges at the Fosse Way between the cemetery of 1856, and wragg's row, a pleasant terrace of C17-C19 cottages. Round the corner to the N an attractive group of houses at the W end of SHEEP STREET. STAR INN HOUSE, C17, has two gables with mullioned windows; TUDOR HOUSE is mid C17 with mullioned and transomed windows. The early C18 RECTORY, which has heavily moulded shouldered architraves to its windows, was altered in the C19, possibly in 1874, the date on a rain-water head of the adjoining WOOLCOMBER HOUSE, whose late C18 faĦade conceals a C16 house with Tudor-arched fireplaces. On the N side, at the corner of Fosse Way, the UNICORN, is a good mid-C18 building with a large early C19 bay window and carriageway arches towards the Fosse. Further E, CHURCH STREET leads back towards the Market Square. GLOSSARY: ashlar: masonry of large blocks wrought to even faces and square edges perp (perpendicular): English Gothic architecture c.1335-50 to c.1530. The name is derived from the upright tracery panels then used. dec (decorated): English Gothic architecture c. 1290 to c.1350. The name is derived from the type of tracery used during the period. tracery: openwork pattern of masonry or timber in the upper part of an opening. pediment: a formalized gable derived from that of a classical temple; also used over doors, windows, etc. corinthian pilasters: One of the three main orders ie: formalised versions of the post-and-lintel system, of classical architecture. Characterised by foliage covered capitals. Pilasters are the flat representation of a classical column in shallow relief. pargetter: plasterer. Pargetting is exterior plaster decoration, either in relief or incised. quoins: dressed stones at the angles of a building. spandrels: roughly triangular spaces between an arch and its containing rectangle, or between adjacent arches. hoodmould: projecting moulding above an arch or lintel to throw off water ogee: double curve, bending first one way and then the other. romanesque: style current in the C11 and C12. In England often called Norman. mullion: vertical member between window lights. transom: horizontal member separating window lights.