Justifiably designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1966, the Cotswolds covers 787 square miles (2,040 km2). It’s the second largest protected landscape in England (second to the Lake District) and the largest AONB. A range of rolling hills rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment, known as the Cotswold Edge, above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat rare in the UK and the predominantly rural landscape contains stone-built villages, historical towns and stately homes and gardens.