The Cotswolds is home to 85000 people and has one of the lowest population densities in England with less than 300 residents in over half its parishes. 

The Arts 

Apart from William Morris (whose ‘Arts & Crafts Movement is described above):

One of England’s best-known writers, Laurie Lee, hailed from the village of Slad, near Painswick. His childhood autobiography, ‘Cider with Rosie’, is a classic of English 20th-century literature.

The composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, was born in the village of Down Ampney, near Cirencester.

The World War I poet and composer, Ivor Gurney, was from Gloucester. The Dymock Poets (Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, Robert Frost, Lascelles Abercrombie, John Drinkwater, Wilfrid Gibson) spent a lot of time in Dymock in the west of Gloucestershire The composer, Gustav Holst, was from Cheltenham. The poet James Elroy Flecker lived in Cheltenham. Nancy Mitford, the author, lived in Swinbrook. The American artist, John Singer Sargent, worked on Broadway. He, together with a mixture of Anglo-American artists and writers, including Henry James, formed the ‘Broadway Group’. The Winchcombe Pottery has been highly influential throughout since its foundation In the 1920s.