Choose a Cotswolds Village and get an Agatha Raisin Mystery recommendation (featuring The Cotswold Explorer)
- Dane Luna
- Oct 26
- 5 min read
The Cotswolds is a region in the United Kingdom composed of charming, quaint, and quintessentially English villages. Its rolling hills, gentle meadows and rural landscapes have earned it the official designation of being an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).
Naturally, these traits make The Cotswolds a perfect setting for a murder mystery. M.C Beaton must've thought as much when she sent her amateur sleuth Agatha Raisin to retire to The Cotswolds in her popular and enduring mystery series. M.C. Beaton is consistently the most borrowed UK author in British Libraries, in large part due to The Agatha Raisin Mysteries (she also wrote the Hamish Macbeth Mysteries, another popular series set in the Scottish Highlands).
I personally love The Cotswolds and would love to visit all its villages one day. But for now, the best I can do is some armchair travel with the Agatha Raisin Mysteries by M.C. Beaton and The Cotswold Explorer, who has an amazing YouTube Channel dedicated to exploring this beautiful region of the world. Read on to explore six Cotswold villages, each paired with a book in the Agatha Raisin series.
Blockley, The Cotswolds
While the village of Carsely where Agatha Raisin lives is a fictional Cotswold village, I personally imagine it to be like Blockley, a real Cotswold village near Moreton-in-Marsh and Chipping Campden. Though not as popular among tourists as the other gems of The Cotswolds, Blockley is just as quaint and charming. And because it's not often visited by tourists, it genuinely feels like a cozy village.
Interestingly, M.C. Beaton actually lived in Blockley until her passing, and her move from London to the Cotswolds coincided with the release of the first book in the Agatha Raisin series.
The Quiche of Death: The First Agatha Raisin Mystery (Agatha Raisin Mysteries Book 1) by M.C. Beaton
Successful PR executive Agatha Raisin sells her business and leaves London for early retirement in The Cotswolds, but she quickly realizes that village life isn't as quaint as it's cracked up to be.
When she joins the local baking contest and her London-bought quiche leads to the judge's untimely demise, she must find the real culprit behind the murder.
While Blockley isn't a popular tourist destination, it's actually the filming location of a popular and beloved British mystery series! The Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in the heart of the village doubles as St. Mary's Church of Father Brown in the fictional town of Kembleford.
Bibury, The Cotswolds
Not only is Bibury home to Arlington Row, the iconic line of honey-colored stone cottages that represent the beauty of The Cotswolds, but it's also a great place for birdwatching. As such, I've selected the next Agatha Raisin book as the village's companion read.
Agatha Raisin and her team investigate a series of suspicious deaths within the small Cotswolds birdwatching community.
Snowshill, The Cotswolds
Perched on top of a hill, this charming Cotswold village is said to often be the first place to see snowfall and where snow tends to settle and linger long after it has melted in other parts of the area, hence its name. Additionally, Snowshill's namesake manor is a unique country house filled with an eccentric collection of curiosities, making it the perfect village to pair with our next Agatha Raisin book, Kissing Christmas Goodbye.
Agatha Raisin is planning for a picture-perfect Christmas in the Cotswolds when she's hired by a wealthy widow who's convinced someone in her family is plotting to kill her.
Castle Combe, The Cotswolds
Nestled in a hollow or "combe", this village is one that truly feels like it's stuck in time. After all, no new cottage has been built in the center of Castle Combe since 1600! The village is accessed through a narrow road that barely accommodates two-way traffic which becomes even narrower the closer you get to its historic center. Despite being a popular tourist destination now, it's not hard to imagine Castle Combe as a village hidden from. the rest of the world and suspended in time once upon a time.
Perhaps it's Castle Combe's location, its beautiful cottages, and the stream that runs through the village that make it seem magical. Which is why I like to imagine it as Fryfam, the fictional village in the tenth book of the Agathat Raisin Mysteries.
Agatha Raisin rents a cottage in Fryfam, a quaint village known for strange occurrences and the presence of fairies. Unfortunately for Agatha, it's also the setting for a strange case of murder.
Bourton-on-the-Water, The Cotswolds
Among the most popular and most visited in the Cotswolds, Bourton-on-the-Water's arched stone bridges and stone cottages make it the picture-perfect English village. Central to its charm is the River Windrush that flows through the center of the village.
Given its unique characteristics, it's only logical to pair it with an Agatha Raisin book with water in the center of its murder mystery.
When the council. chairman is found murdered near the famous natural spring of the village of Ancombe, Agatha Raisin is tasked to find his killer.
Chipping Campden, The Cotswolds
It's hard to pick a favorite Cotswold village, but along with Blockley, Chipping Campden probably makes the top of my list. It's also the starting point of the Cotswold Way, a national trail that starts from the. Cotswold village and ends in Bath. So for Chipping Campden's matching mystery, we're going with Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley.
Agatha Raisin discovers the beauty of rambling in the Cotswolds, until one of the walkers is found dead on a field. It's up to Agatha and her neighbor and love interest James Lacey to follow the footsteps of the killer to solve the murder.
The Cotswold Explorer: The Cotswold Way
If you'd like to learn more about the Cotswold Way, Robin Shuckburgh has an incredible series where he walks the entirety of the Cotswold Way in his The Cotswold Explorer Youtube Channel.
The Cotswold Explorer has also re-released the classic and quintessential guidebook to the Cotswolds written by Herbert Evans. Originally published in 1905, Evans wrote the book after cycling through the Cotswolds.
The fact that a 1905 guidebook remains reliable over a century later is further proof that the Cotswolds has remained largely unchanged through time.
Which Cotswold village would you like to visit, and which Agatha Raisin book would you take with you?
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