Luxury self-catering accommodation in Slad

Little more than a scattering of Cotswold stone cottages clinging to the steep hillside, Slad's rhythm of life still moves “at the same pace as Caesar’s”, lanes barely wide enough for a single car threading their way between walls of intricately tessellated rock. The five-mile Wildlife Way meanders through ancient woodlands, inviting discovery of vistas that inspired Lee’s prose. The Slad Valley’s limestone grasslands shelter rare flora; ladies’ bedstraw and fairy flax sway among the grasses, while the elusive bee orchid enacts its age-old dance of mimicry. Keen eyes might just catch the iridescent flash of a Large Blue butterfly, resurrected from near-extinction in this landscape.

In The Woolpack, Lee’s former haunt, worn beams have borne witness to centuries of village life, from whispered secrets to raucous harvest celebrations. Further afield, the Rococo Gardens in Painswick offer whimsical contrast, their 18th-century follies a playful foil to Slad’s serenity. Stroud's Farmers’ Market entices with local cheeses and orchard-fresh cider. As sunlight gilds the cottages, a hush descends, broken only by the melancholic call of a wood pigeon or the distant bark of a fox. It is now, that one might imagine being transported back to Lee's childhood, when the valley was “cut off by the high Cotswolds as by the walls of a circus ring”.