The Old Kiln House news and views

Wyatts Farm Shop

Wyatts Farm Shop is located near Great Rollright which is 10 minutes from our luxury Cotswolds B&B in Shipston-On-Stour and Great Rollright is also only a mile from the amazing Rollright Stones.
Wyatts is unique in that it has a green elephant standing guard at the entrance.

Wyatts has an in house butchery that supplies freash meat seven days a week. They also make a point of stocking local produce.

The farm shop sells a wide variety of delicious treats and gifts. There is also a nursery and coffee shop on the premises.

Wyatts also uses milk from its own dairy herd to […]

More baby birds

Last year we discovered hidden guests in our garden, i.e. two baby pigeons.
Proof of our hospitality is that this year we have two baby starlings with protective parents in tow.

Long may this continue!

By |July 31st, 2015|Our garden|0 Comments

Great new bar in Shipston

We have had another great new addition for the Shipston after hours crowd.

The excellent El Cafe has long been a favourite of our guests. In fact this weekend we had two lovely guests from San Francisco who went along for dinner and absolutely loved the food.

Well David, el maestro from el Cafe has started another exciting venture, La Vinoteca.
With excellent decor, very nice, friendly staff and a good selection of unusual wines, this is going to become a firm Shipston favourite. In fact, all of the guests whom we have suggested La Vinoteca to have been most impressed.

Definitely worth a […]

By |July 20th, 2015|Eating Out|0 Comments

Dining out – The Churchill Arms, Paxford

Paxford is another beautiful village about seven minutes from Shipston-On-Stour where we have our Bed and Breakfast.

The Churchill Arms is a lovely pub which has recently been revamped and it also features a great portrait of my husband’s hero, Winston Churchill.
We visited the pub last month to try out their new menu and were suitably impressed.
The decor is smart but sympathetic and the menu a good take on modern English.

The service flowed well and we really enjoyed our dishes especially the Haddock Souffle starter.
All in all an excellent experience and we will definitely be recommending this restaurant to our […]

By |June 14th, 2015|Eating Out|0 Comments

Dining at Sheldon’s Wines – 2

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about our friends Elisa and John staring a new venture at Sheldon’s Wines an independent wine merchant in a beautiful, interesting building in Shipston-On-Stour. Sheldon’s is just two minutes walk from our Bed and Breakfast.
                                       
Well, it is a triumph! The décor is excellent, very sympathetic to the building but also chic and the food excellent.
     
Friday night was very busy with Elisa and John’s burger wagon serving up a storm. If you […]

Another Shipston dining option at Sheldon’s Wine Cellars

Some more good news for Shipston.
Our friends Elisa and John who run a lovely Cotswolds catering company called Lord and Lady food are going to start offering food at Sheldon’s Wine Cellars.

Sheldon’s is a good wine merchant located in a very interesting building in  the heart of Shipston. Sheldon’s has vast cellars where wine used to be bottled and which are now used for catered dining events. The cellars extend under the surrounding roads and also lead to tunnels under Shipston which lead who knows where .  The building has fascinating history (amongst other things, it was once used […]

New Cotswolds book – SECRET GARDENS OF THE COTSWOLDS

The very talented photographer Hugo Rittson Thomas is releasing a new book, Secret Gardens of the Cotswolds with written by Victoria Summerley .
It will be released on the 5th February 2015 but I have already pre-ordered a copy.
The photography looks spectacular and if the text is similar to Victoria’s blog, it will be a great read.

Winter sunshine in the North Cotswolds

We have become Shipston residents relatively recently and have been very impressed by the wonderful winter weather. This year has been especially spectacular with some amazing sunny frozen days.

I was walking Charlie this week with my friend Elaine who has lived in Shipston for more than thirty years and she was saying that most of the time the weather in winter is as good as summer. It is not clear why, perhaps there is a bit of a micro-climate here or else it may have to do with the air coming in from Wales over the Vale of Evesham […]

Eating out – El Cafe’ Tapas Bar, Shipston

El Cafe’ is another Shipston enigma.
One of the best tapas bars we have eaten at despite our many visits to Spain.
I remember how disappointed we were on our last visit to Madrid as we tried several tapas eateries and didn’t find anything remarkable.
The best meal we had (if you ever find yourself in Madrid!) was at the lhardy which seems to be a local power broker’s restaurant (definitely not a tapas establishment) with several businessmen and politicians doing their thing while we were there.
The first place we ate when we came to Shipston was El Cafe and we have […]

Pub review – The Red Lion, Long Compton

Long Compton is about a seven minute drive from Shipston-On-Stour where our luxury Bed and Breakfast, The Old Kiln House is located. Long Compton is a lovely village surrounded by beautiful scenery and with the world famous Rollright Stones right next door.

 It is also home to the wonderful Red Lion Pub .
 
On Sunday, after getting some rave reviews from guests,  we wondered over with CotswoldsCharlie (as it is a dog friendly pub). CotswoldsCharlie was given a huge welcome by the lovely manager Lisa and he was even more excited when he saw that there were Pig’s Ears on the […]