Seniors Enjoy Chipping Norton, England

So where would this senior come up with a name like Chipping Norton? Let’s try Condé Nast Travel Magazine, one of about a dozen that I subscribe to.

The May 2016 edition focused on some of  the finest hotels and resorts in the world. Up came Chipping Norton and upscale Soho Farmhouse in their May 2016 edition. It is totally cool.

The town has been voted one of the UK’s top ten Country Towns by the 200,000 readers of Period Living and Traditional Homes. Chipping Norton is one of the least explored and most scenic corners of the Cotswolds. The town has its share of historic buildings and invites seniors to stroll through.

The town’s name means ‘market north town’, with “Chipping” (from Old English cēping) meaning ‘market’. Chipping Norton began as a small settlement at the foot of a hill on which stands the motte-and-bailey Chipping Norton Castle.

Very little of the original structures remain apart from earthworks.  Just 74 miles from London, Chipping Norton is known as the gateway to the Cotswolds.

Seniors Find A Wool And Tweed Town

The 2011 Census recorded the parish’s population as 6,500. In mediaeval times, when the Cotswolds were one of the wealthiest parts of England due to the production of wool, Chipping Norton grew in importance and many of the mediaeval buildings  remain in the town center where  buildings date from the 18th century.

Until not too long ago ‘Chippy’’ (love that sobriquet), apart from being a small market town, had a real industrial base in wool and tweed production. Just outside the town stands Bliss Tweed Mill that looks like a cross between a mansion and a folly, rather than a late 19th century factory.

It has an unusual domed based chimney which is a landmark for Chipping Norton from miles about. Tweed of high quality was made here for many years. The owner William Bliss was instrumental in bringing the railway to supply coal for his mill’s steam engines. The Mill finally closed in 1980 and has now been converted to luxury apartments. The town’s railway and it’s station closed in the 1960s.

Seniors Visit The Rollright Stones

TripAdvisor suggests senior travelers not miss the The Rollright Stones, a major tourist attraction that is a complex of three Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monuments, The Kings Men stone circle, the King Stone, and another called the Whispering Knights.

Chippy (as it is affectionally known by its residents) has seen its fair share of history, and is an essential place for seniors to visit while in the Cotswolds, as well as an idyllic and peaceful place to stay.

It is said that Chippy is a fantastic place for a visit, boasting an enviable number of independent shops and boutiques, an award-winning theater with an extraordinarily diverse program including its famous annual pantomime; The Lido, one of the UK’s few remaining outdoor heated swimming pools,  a museum of local history and a leisure center.

Enjoy Chippy. -jeb