Cotswolds

Starting out from the Regency splendour of Cheltenham, Rob Bell crosses the Cotswolds, following the 46-mile route of the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway. The line passes many quarries, all producing the famous Cotswold stone - some now abandoned and some still supplying stone to sites like Hampton Court. With numerous hills to negotiate, this railway was never an express route, but it did open up this landscape to visitors for the first time. From the late 1800s, tourists piled in by rail to explore picture postcard villages like Bourton-on-the-Water, establishing a new local `industry".