Cotswolds National Landscape

The underlying Jurassic limestone gives the Cotswolds National Landscape its distinctive character – from the famous beauty of the local architecture, to the dry stone walls criss-crossing farmed fields and wildflower meadows. Limestone in the Cotswolds ranges from warm honeyed tones to cool greys and is found everywhere – historic merchants’ houses, wool churches, sheep enclosures, and ancient monuments.

Rising gently westward from the broad, green meadows of the upper Thames, the Cotswold Hills crest in a dramatic escarpment above the Severn valley and Evesham Vale. The Cotswolds are nationally important for their rare limestone grassland habitat and for ancient beechwoods with rich flora – around half the country’s flower-rich Jurassic limestone grassland is right here. In summer, meadows are awash with yellows, purples, and pinks as the wildflowers bloom, providing habitat and nourishment for a huge diversity of wildlife including many species of butterfly. Important grasslands such as Cleeve Hill have survived due to their status as ancient common, and a National Nature Reserve protects the finest ancient beech complex. Some plants in the Cotswolds are so rare that they have legal protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.