This is a more tightly defined drawing and watercolour of the Market Square and the market cross in the Cotswolds town of Stow-on-the-Wold, perhaps better defined as a ‘line and wash’.

I visited Stow a couple of weeks ago, on the way back from a day out in the Cotswolds. It is a charming place with quite a sence of history. This is particularly marked by the ravages of the civil war, with a famous battle here between The New Model Army and Royalists heading for Oxford in March 1646.

Nowadays Stow is a quieter place. The Covid pandemic of the last couple of years has meant a huge falling off of the tourism trade but now it seems that people are gradually returning, though still not the same as pre-Covid days.

Still, fewer people and some late Autuminal sunshine meant it was a pleasant place to wander around between tea-shops, bookshops and galleries. My ‘line & wash’ shows an empty Square surrounded by a mixture of the local Cotswold stone buildings and the church behind them. A bit of artistic license means I haven’t included the many cars usually parked in the Square and the game of ‘find a parking space’ there.