The "Six Road Closure" Tour 13th Sep 2025

When we read about Howard Day’s plan for a North Cotswolds tour we thought it sounded delightful, even though it was the weekend after our 2½ week tour of Northern Spain. We could exercise Albert, our 75 saloon, leaving Bertie, our 90/105 tourer, to recover from the exertions of travelling around Spain. A quick email to Howard confirmed our entry. Further thought made us realise that staying in the Cotswolds on the Friday night made much sense as we would then start the tour nice and fresh on the Saturday morning. Finding accommodation in the Cotswolds proved tricky and potentially very expensive; eventually we plumped for the Premier Inn in Chipping Norton.

Whilst on our tour of Northern Spain we received an apologetic email from Howard saying that as we were the only entrants he had reluctantly cancelled the tour. We had been really looking forward to it, so decided not to cancel our accommodation booking but to do the tour on our own, and it turned out to be a great success.

Gill had a committee meeting on the Friday morning so we couldn’t set out until late morning. Albert was going extremely well on his new high compression pistons, cruising comfortably at 60 mph, with more in hand. Not bad for a fairly large 2.3 litre saloon! We were heading for Chastleton House, an unspoilt National Trust Jacobean house. The journey proved quite stressful as we encountered four road closures before we had even left Northamptonshire! The road closure signs never tell you where the closure actually is and the diversion signs seem to disappear at inconvenient points. We stopped for a picnic en-route, quickly closing the sun roof when it started to rain. Quite a difference from the hood erecting manoeuvres needed in the tourer and it made us realise how practical a Talbot saloon is as a touring car.

      Eventually we arrived at Chastleton which proved to be very interesting; if you have never been we can strongly recommend it. It was built by a wealthy self-made man to cement his position in society but his descendants never had enough money to do any alterations to bring it up-to-date, so it has remained almost unchanged for 400 years. The barrel-vaulted long gallery with wonderful plaster decoration on the ceiling was a real highlight. Then on to Chipping Norton and a wonderful meal in a very authentic Italian restaurant – Gill can vouch for the tiramisu being the best she can remember.

The next day we did our own tour – we didn’t want to do Howard’s route in case he runs the tour in the future. We had a lovely drive to Broadway Tower, which was spectacular, with views for miles around as can be seen in the photograph. It has recently been refurbished and you can climb to the top, passing through some wonderful hexagonal rooms and trying to imagine what it was like living there.

      We then went on to Batsford Arboretum for lunch. It was raining by the time we reached the arboretum so we abandoned our lunch plans and pushed on through beautiful landscapes and quiet roads to Upton House, our final destination. Frustratingly there were another two road closures! It had stopped raining by the time we reached Upton House, so we dived into the café for a late lunch before heading inside the house to view the art collection on display. In the 1920s this had been the country home of the Chairman of Shell, who was then the second richest man in the world. He assembled one of the most significant collections of European art anywhere, with paintings by the likes of Bosch, Brueghel, El Greco, Canaletto and Stubbs. These sit alongside outstanding Sèvres porcelain and Chelsea figures. The gardens looked equally spectacular, but it was raining by the time we had finished looking at the art works, so we headed off home. We returned by a different route to avoid all the road closures!

      We had a wonderful solo tour, though it was a pity there weren’t some other Talbots to keep Albert company. The Cotswolds are a beautiful part of the country and, if you avoid main roads and the most popular tourist areas, can be quiet with relatively little traffic. It’s not far, so give it a go. You won’t be disappointed; hopefully you’ll have no road closures!