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Cotswold House Hotel stands in the fine square of Chipping Campden, described as one of the most beautiful towns in England, and overlooks the 17th-century Market Hall. All the buildings glow with the yellow Cotswold stone, and reflect a history which goes back well over 1000 years. The name Campden, or Camperdene, appears to be Saxon, meaning 'valley with fields'.

The first detailed written reference to Campden is in the Domesday Book of 1085, which records that, before the Norman conquest of England, the manor of Camperdene had been held by King Harold.

Around 1185, it received its charter as a borough, and the new market was established in the present High Street. By the early 13th century, the market area was being called 'Cepynge Caumpedene' (or 'Market Campden'), and in the 14th century it was well established as a
wool town.

Cotswold House has only been a hotel since the late 1930s, but buildings have stood on this site since mediaeval times. We know this because in the hotel cellars there is evidence of the foundations of earlier houses and a mediaeval well.

The house, as you see it today, was built in 1802 by Richard Miles, a prosperous local merchant. He was elected bailiff of Chipping Campden several times and was obviously an important person in town. He apparently demolished the existing buildings on the site to make way for his new property.

He clearly had ambitious plans, commissioning a fine Regency ashlar-faced house with an impressive portico, held up by detached fluted Tuscan columns and a splendid curving staircase. He also remodelled North End Terrace in Leysbourne, and Miles House in the same village is named after him. Miles is buried in an altar tomb in a railed enclosure in the churchyard to the south of St James's Church, under the tower.

At the end of the 19th century a Dr Smith lived here, and his son, the Hollywood film actor Aubrey Smith, was born here and went to the grammar school. Dr Smith's assistant lived in Ardley House, now The King's Arms next door, and the cottages between the two buildings (now the Ashbee, Griggs, Kiftsgate and Hidcote Cottage rooms) were used as the surgery. You can still see the blocked doorway that led to Ardley House.

These cottages are older than the house and it is possible they were on a packhorse lane that went through Cotswold House grounds to the Noel Arms' arch across the High Street.

A local man, Fred Coldicott, remembered a Dr Morris living at Cotswold House. In 1918, Fred's brother, Bill, worked for Colonel Paley who then owned the property. Bill's job was to work in the garden, milk the Jersey cow and help with Paley's son's polo ponies. His wage was eight shillings a week.

The last owners of Cotswold House, as a private house, were Miss Warden and Mrs Wallace who kept horses and dogs. Their Great Danes and wolfhounds would bark behind the gates and the railings, which then enclosed a front garden.

There were several proprietors after it became a hotel in the thirties, the first being a Mr and Mrs James Hargreave. In 1963 Mr Graeme Black bought the hotel and he ran it with Geoffrey Douglass. One winter in the mid-60s, Mr Black's brother looked after the hotel. When Mr Black returned from holiday, his brother reported a peaceful watch, but 'who' he asked, 'was the rude woman who didn't speak whenever I said good morning?' He described her to his brother as a lady dressed in a shawl and wearing a blue bonnet. 'That,' said Black, 'was Mrs Wallace.' He seemed familiar with this non-paying guest and apparently was not the first to have seen her haunt the hotel.

The adjoining property, Charlecote House, was purchased in the 1960s when the hotel expanded, and the downstairs is now Hicks' Brasserie. Dating from 1650, Charlecote is an architectural conundrum, and once had Elizabethan windows that have now been removed - one was sold in 1933 to America for £100! A matching ashlar-stone face was added in the 1740s, but its essential character has stayed the same.

Charlecote, too, came complete with a resident ghost. It has been seen only once or twice, unlike Mrs Wallace's ghost - who is seen from time to time on the circular staircase and top landing. But don't worry. Both ghosts are said to be very friendly!