A local's guide to travelling in the Cotswolds and surrounds

I grew up in the Cotswolds. My father and grandfather were both Cotswold stone builders and architects. We lived our lives in the picture-postcard honey to grey-coloured stone houses you see on all the postcards. 

The Cotswolds is one of the most beautiful regions of the UK. Made an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty many years ago, millions of dollars was poured into rebuilding hedgerows and stone walls that had fallen into disrepair. Today you can drive over the 'wolds' and see the patchwork of fields as they had been for hundreds of years.

Passing the length of the Cotswolds is the famous Fosse Way, a Roman Road built in the first and second centuries AD. Roman ruins are to be found along its length, including the famous Chedworth Roman Villa with its mosaics. Elsewhere there are signs of earlier history. The Salmonsbury Camp Hillfort just outside Bourton-on-the-Water is based around a prehistoric earthwork that has seen human activity for 6,000 years, from the late Neolithic – it's one of the oldest known settlements in the whole of Europe.

Just to the north are Warwick Castle and Stratford-upon-Avon. Warwick Castle is a truly magnificent and almost perfectly maintained moated castle. You can walk around the ramparts and up to the top of the towers. Stratford is the birthplace of Shakespeare – and you should take in a play while you're there. 

Here is a list of favourite places I put together with my father for some recent guests to the Cotswolds.  

• Chedworth Roman Villa.
• Cirencester/Bath/Gloucester Cathedrals.
• Stow-on-the-Wold and Burford are old Cotswold towns built on the ancient wool trade.
• The National Trust's Chastleton House is held in a time warp from around the 1600-1700s.
• Croome House was built in the eighteenth century with landscaping by the famous Capability Brown. It has good walks and houses a secret wartime base which developed radar capabilities to help fight the oppressors during the Second World War.
  
• Snowshill Manor National Trust houses collections of 19th and 20 Century items.
• Toddington to Cheltenham Steam Railway includes a full return trip from Broadway Station.
• Broadway Tower. The brainchild of Capability Brown and designed by James Wyatt in 1794 in the form of a castle for Barbara, Countess of Coventry.
• The Cotswold Farm Park at the top of the Cotswold Hills near Guiting Power preserves ancient breeds of livestock. It's great for kids and families too. 
• Salmonsbury Camp Hillfort (Greystones Farm), Bourton-on-the-Water.