Understand
Adlestrop is one of the more attractive of Cotswolds villages, the more so on account that it is far less frequented by mass tourism than many other neighbouring towns and villages.
The novelist Jane Austen was a visitor her uncle was the church rector and is thought to have drawn inspiration from the village and its surroundings for Mansfield Park.
Adlestrop poetry
Adlestrop is probably best known from the short poem of the same name, by the war poet Edward Thomas, whose verse captures for many the essential atmosphere of the English countryside in high summer:
Yes. I remember Adlestrop âThe name, because one afternoonOf heat the express-train drew up thereUnwontedly. It was late June.The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.No one left and no one cameOn the bare platform. What I sawWas Adlestropâonly the nameAnd willows, willow-herb, and grass,And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,No whit less still and lonely fairThan the high cloudlets in the sky.And for that minute a blackbird sangClose by, and round him, mistier,Farther and farther, all the birdsOf Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
