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Shoulder pads at the ready. Rivals, Jilly Cooper’s brilliant bonkbuster of a book, has exploded onto our TV screens, with David Tennant as Lord Tony Baddingham going head to head against Alex Hassell’s dastardly delicious playboy Rupert Campbell-Black. Raucous dinner parties, shady business deals and games of naked tennis ensue, all set to a banging Eighties soundtrack. And while sex and scandal are front and centre, there’s another glamorous star to admire on both page and screen – the beautiful backdrop of the Cotswolds, where the book is set and where much of the show was filmed.
The fictional county of Rutshire, where Rivals unfolds, is based on Gloucestershire, where Cooper has lived since 1982, and her cast of characters carouse in honey-stoned manor houses in and around the town of Cotchester, brought to life in Tetbury in the new Disney+ adaptation. In Rivals, Cooper’s characters gallop across lush rolling hills, party in crumbling yet charming manor houses, and shop for their power suits in country boutiques. Cooper herself, “queen of the bonkbuster” and executive producer of the series, lives in the postcard-worthy village of Bisley and calls her home stomping ground “heartbreakingly beautiful”.
“It’s all horses and dogs and houses and cars and wives!” screams Maud O’Hara (played by Victoria Smurfit) of the Cotswolds in the show. So where are all the heartthrob playboys, TV moguls, moneyed blondes and waggy labradors hanging out in England’s super-glam “golden triangle”? And how can you experience the Rivals lifestyle yourself?
The fictional county of Rutshire is based on the Cotswolds, with filming taking place in Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire (Robert Viglasky)
Where to play
Little over an hour’s road trip from top to toe (hire a vintage sports car for max Rivals cred), the Cotswolds may be England’s largest area of natural beauty but it’s pocket-sized enough to explore over a long weekend. For classic Cotswolds backdrops, wander in Bisley, Cooper’s home village, which William Morris called “the most beautiful village in England”, go shopping in Cotchester – sorry, Tetbury – which has 30 antique shops and counting, or tour Chavenage House, the 400-plus-year-old manor that stars as the O’Hara family home on the show.
Pull! Tony Baddingham may not get his man in Rivals but he always gets his pheasant – try the less bloody version with a spot of clay pigeon shooting on the Farncombe Estate’s 500 acres. Cooper is a lifelong lover of horses, with equestrian high jinks running through her books – to follow in Rupert’s hoof prints, take a canter at Lucknam Park, which offers horse riding in their glorious grounds for all levels.
Saddle up at Lucknam Park – the hotel is known for its impressive equestrian centre (Nathan Rollinson)
Half the fun of the TV iteration of Rivals is the incredible Eighties fashion. Head to Fairfax and Favor in Stow-on-the-Wold or Joules in Cirencester for royalty-approved jumpers, jeans and tall boots – the unofficial uniform of loaded locals (dog sold separately). There’s a hippier side to the Cotswolds, too – bohemian Maud and her daughters would definitely frequent Stroud’s Sound Records for the latest tunes, buy ingredients at the town’s Saturday farmer’s market and search through Strangeness and Charm’s vintage gems for cowboy boots, ballgowns and puffball skirts.
Read more: How to explore the Cotswolds by bike
Where to eat and drink
Chipping Norton is the foodie capital of the Cotswolds, surrounded by a cluster of posh pubs. Grab a table at The Wild Rabbit for a slap-up Sunday roast (and to rub shoulders with the Chipping Norton set) or try The Kingham Plough for a posh ploughman’s that’d satisfy Freddie Jones (Danny Dyer). In the summer, sit out under red-and-white striped parasols at the Double Red Duke in Bampton, and in winter hole up in its cosy bar and restaurant. You’ll find red leather bar stools, elevated steak – if you want to copy Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner), order it “still mooing” – and live jazz bands.
Further south, the pretty Painswick’s new Taste of the Painswick six-course tasting menu and wine flight is a triumph of girdle-busting local fare with pig’s head, truffle puddings and Cotswold lamb all popping up on the menu. And it wouldn’t be straight-outta-Rivals without lunchtime cocktails and lashings of champagne. Lola & Co in Tetbury could easily double up as Rivals’s sexy Bar Sinister.
Wild Thyme and Honey’s courtyard bar is groaning in sheepskin throws (Wild Thyme & Honey)
Brush up your cooking skills like Taggie O’Hara (Bella Maclean), who spends much of Rivals whipping up coqs au vin and shepherd’s pies. Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, Raymond Blanc’s not-so-modest pile, is all about garden-to-table eating – take classes in the cookery and garden schools in everything from patisserie to fruit pruning then stay the night in delightful Provence-meets-Cotswolds bedrooms. Cheffy types will also be in heaven at Daylesford Cookery School. Here you can learn to cook with ingredients from the organic farm or people watch in the farm shop, where the great and the good of the Cotswolds buy their Christmas hampers.
Read more: Dog-friendly places to stay in the Cotswolds
Where to stay
For full-on Cotchester living, it has to be plush Calcot Manor just outside Tetbury. Here you can stay in a golden-hued manor house complete with trailing roses, or a private cottage set in 220 rolling acres where you can borrow bikes and wellie boots and try a spot of yoga or a game of tennis (sadly I’m not sure if they allow naked games on their two courts as yet…). Or you can just spend your whole stay cocooned in a bathrobe in Calcot’s wonderful spa.
Play Lord or Lady to the manner born at Slaughters Manor House set in Cotswold’s prettiest village with the least-pretty name, Lower Slaughter. It’s a crime that the hotel’s copper-clad cocktail bar wasn’t a Rivals filming location, but you can still grab an old fashioned, play chess by the fireplace and try to spot celebs in the restaurant before retiring to a blissful bedroom.
Calcot Manor near Tetbury is quintessential Cotswolds (Calcot Manor)
For a clubbable (and more affordable) stay, make a beeline for pub-turned-bolthole Wild Thyme and Honey near Cirencester – think snug pastel bedrooms with four posters and freestanding baths, a courtyard bar groaning in sheepskin throws, and its very own pub, the 16th-century Crown, with a sunny terrace set alongside bubbling Ampney Brook.
And if you’re inspired by Rivals’s raucous pool party scene, The Rectory Hotel in Crudwell is a dream. The perfect mix of casual living meets country house draws a young, fun crowd – fuddy-duddies need not apply. The bucolic garden hides a lily pond, croquet set and a sky-blue heated pool that in summer feels more Mediterranean than middle England. Match your bikini with big Eighties hair and you’ll feel straight out of the Rutshire Chronicles.
Read more: The best spa hotels in the Cotswolds
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