Looking for England’s hidden gem

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/the-best-day-trips-to-take-by-train-out-of-london-2016-8

I liked Lyme Regis on the Coast.

Thank you - I’ll check it out!

The Peak District , Chatsworth and the surrounding towns and villages Matlock Bath , Castleton , Bakewell , to name a few .

You have many options. If you only have 2 days/1 night, then I wouldn’t visit York, as you will be spending most of your time in transit. Personally, I would take a night off your Cotswolds itinerary and add it to your “other” destination if you want to travel further. York is a great place for a 2 full day visit. With a third full day, you could add Chatsworth House or Castle Howard or the Yorkshire Dales or Whitby on the coast.

The Wye Valley has a different feel to the Cotswolds - Hay on Wye is the book capital of the UK, Monmouth, Goodrich and Chepstow all have castles, Tintern Abbey is nearby or the Forest of Dean and Symonds Yat for rural life. Hereford Cathedral is a short drive with its Mappa Mundi.

Essex and Suffolk have different traditional architecture to the West Country - places such as Lavenham, Long Melford, Kersey and Thaxted are all pretty places with a few National Trust properties nearby for more history.

With only 2 days, the New Forest May suit - less travel time from the Cotswolds. Visit Beaulieu House and Bucklers Hard for history, look out for the wild ponies and visit Lymington etc for pretty villages.

We just left York and really enjoyed it. I would highly recommend 3 nights here.

We spent 3 nights in Bath which was enough time to see all the sites and make an excursion to Stonehenge (left at 2 pm and returned at 6 pm).

We had 3 nights in Cotswolds and I felt like that was enough time.

Fabulous suggestions everyone!

I should have noted in my previous post that one day we were going to do excursions to Wells or Glastonbury (or maybe Chepstow) from Bath. We were also going to take a day trip to see Warwick Castle and Hidcote Gardens from our Airbnb B&B in Chipping Campden.

We had wondered if four days might be a bit long in Cotswolds. We are willing to ditch a day if we found another place within reasonable distance that offered things we liked.

Just a few minutes drive from Hidcote is Kiftsgate Court Gardens.

From Bath, Wells is a great day excursion, especially if you can plan for a Wednesday or Saturday which are market days. The bishops palace (particularly the garden), Wells cathedral and Vicars Close are very much worth seeing.

With just 3 days, it does not make sense to go on long journeys that will eat into your time. I would suggest you consider going into south east Wales. Immediately over the Severn estuary, you have the lower Wye Valley which has Chepstow Castle and Tintern Abbey. Venture further into south east Wales & you have Raglan Castle. I would suggest you drive up the A40 to stay in the Crickhowell to Brecon area. From here you could make trips by car to Big Pit (a disused coal mine open to tourists at Blaenavon) and towards the west, the National Showcases of Wales (Dan-yr-Ogof). See map of area in relation to Bath & Cotswolds:>https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.7764628,-2.5840423,10.42z/data=!5m1!1e1
http://www.breconbeacons.org
https://www.visitmonmouthshire.com

Alternatively - and this can be done by *train from either Bath or Cheltenham in just over 1 hour - go and stay in Cardiff. Visit Museum of Welsh Life at St.Fagans (Bus 32A from Westgate Street); Caerphilly Castle & maybe Castell Coch - both of which are just to the N of Cardiff whilst in the centre you have Cardiff Castle. https://www.visitcardiff.com
/https://museum.wales/stfagans/about/
https://www.cardiffcastle.com

• On the following Sundays in September 2019, the main line railway in & out of Cardiff is closed for electrification works:> 8, 15, 22 & 29. In addition - Saturday 14th. (Buses will be used instead).

Thank you for the additional ideas folks!

If you have 3 days spare I would recommend York, about 4.5 hours drive from the Cotwolds.

If you are looking for something different or off the beaten path, I'd suggest Belvoir Castle or Harlaxton Manor as great stop-overs. Grantham is the closest town to these amazing venues and it is an hour north of London by train. If you don't have a village market on your itinerary yet, Grantham's Saturday market is really quaint. My husband and I visited Grantham and Harlaxton in June. I attended Harlaxton College 25 years ago, so I wanted to go back and show off this amazing place to my husband, but the manor is available for the public to visit. We actually made a day trip of going to Grantham and Cambridge as part of our week long trip to London. I'm not sure exactly how the details worked out as our travel guide Euro Travel Coach made all of the arrangements for us, but the day trip was super easy for us to navigate with the instructions we were provided and totally worth it. We even had the chance to eat breakfast at Kitchen and Coffee and lunch in The Gregory Arms pub which are both local eateries and fantastic finds.

Chepstow Castle and Tintern Abbey were the first places we visited after leaving Bath by car and before getting to the Cotswolds. It was wonderful and my memories of those places have not dimmed in the 14 years that have passed. Other places have dimmed. I agree, take a day off of the Cotswolds.

One thing I did write down.. We had great fish and chips in a place called Greedys in the Costwolds. I can't remember if it was in Stow on the Wold though we did stay there. Perhaps it was because it was a cold and misty day but that was one of the best meals we had on our entire 3 week tour, including a 5 day visit with a friend from Scotland who took us to some great little restaurants! It was served in newspapers and we ate on a bench nearby.

If you like castles, check out Warwick Castle. I also loved Hampton Court Palace-Henry the VIII's house. My second favourite site after the Tower of London.