Chipping Sodbury
Chipping Sodbury is a historic market town in South Gloucestershire near the edge of the Cotswolds whose long medieval market place, wide enough to accommodate the cattle and produce markets that were the centre of local agricultural trade for centuries, survives as one of the finest examples of a planned medieval market street in the Cotswold region. The town retains much of its medieval street pattern and a collection of buildings ranging from the medieval period through to the Georgian that gives it a genuine historical character.
The market place of Chipping Sodbury, unusually wide relative to the buildings that line it, was laid out in the twelfth century when the town was established as a new planned settlement to exploit the agricultural trade of the surrounding area. The name Chipping, like Chipping Campden and Chipping Norton, indicates a market town, the word derived from the Old English ceaping meaning trading place. The market tradition, though much reduced from its medieval scale, continues in the town.
The surrounding South Gloucestershire countryside provides pleasant walking and cycling on the Cotswold fringe, and the town's position between the Severn Vale and the Cotswold escarpment gives it access to two quite different landscape characters. The combination of the genuine market town character, the medieval street plan and the accessibility from Bristol and Bath makes Chipping Sodbury a rewarding destination for those exploring this less visited corner of Gloucestershire.