The narrow lanes and honeyed stone walls of the Gloucestershire market town of Stow-on-the-Wold are not the setting where one would expect to see an angry altercation – unless it was a standoff between Range Rovers for the last parking spot in the gridlocked market square.
This is a place of ancient doorways and expensive condiments, where the pavements are dotted with teashops and vintage cars drift past with their roofs down and a plaque on the war memorial records the last time a battle was fought here, in 1646.
But could this almost parodistically charming town, or another very like it, soon find itself at the heart of the angry US culture wars? According to reports, the US vice-president, JD Vance, will be holidaying in the Cotswolds with his family next month, and protesters are determined to let him know just how warm the welcome will not be in England’s chocolate box countryside.
“JD Vance is every bit as unwelcome in the UK as Donald Trump,” said the Stop Trump Coalition, which mobilises British opposition to the US president. “We are sure that, even in the Cotswolds, he will find the resistance waiting.”
If so, it will not be a new experience for the veep. Vance’s wife, Usha, and their three young children had to abandon a ski holiday in Vermont in March after they were met with crowds of protesters with signs reading “Go ski in Russia”. The Vances were also jeered at Disneyland in California after part of the park was closed off for their sole use.
For some, such as the comedian and former chatshow host Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, the actor Portia de Rossi, outrage at the Trump administration has gone further. The couple moved to the Cotswolds earlier this year and now regarded it as permanent, DeGeneres said last week, explicitly so they could escape the Trump administration. Luxury estate agents say they are among growing numbers of wealthy Americans seeking a foothold in what some, inevitably, are calling the English Hamptons (others, on account of the many posh people here already, prefer to call it “the Couttswolds”).
And now, the VP? He may not be popular, but in Stow at least, the Vance resistance did not yet appear to have mobilised earlier this week. Local people know the value of the tourist dollar or yuan, and despite the crowds of tourists disgorging from coaches and the backed-up traffic on the A429, they welcome them, if occasionally through gritted teeth.
“That’s the balancing act that [we live with],” said Ken Greenway, who had ridden his scooter into Stow “to escape the crowds in Burford”, his equally picturesque village nearby. Vance and his compatriots were welcome, he said, “and anybody who has got a business must be over the moon to see all these people coming in. But the locals, we’re struggling. I mean, it’s taken me 20 minutes to come two miles [into town] on the main road.”
Some of the VP’s countrymen are less polite about his trip. “I’m glad we’ll have gone by then,” says Laurelyn Karagianis, visiting with a family party from Los Angeles. It had been a dream for a decade to visit the Cotswolds. “When I think about a cosy, Christmassy holiday, I think of Bourton-on-the-Water, Castle Combe,” she says, adding that it is a shame that US politics has followed the family down the winding lanes.
“I just met with a [British] friend who I haven’t seen in 15 years, and that was the main topic of discussion over dinner. It’s sad that our politicians are kind of a laughing stock that the world has to protest,” Karagianis says
Whatever the cause – US political refugees, a post-Covid exodus of London’s wealthy, or sun-dappled social media posts in which Americans visit a pub or try to work an Aga – most local people agree that visitor numbers have swelled significantly in the past decade.
For some, enough is enough. After eight years living in Stow, Lesley Webb is moving to West Sussex after a change in her circumstances – which she admits is a relief. “It’s an awful thing to say, but for me, it’s just become too touristy. Stow itself has got busier and busier and busier. It’s just the volume of people, everywhere,” Webb says.
Perhaps happily for the village, rumours now suggest the Vances may end up not in this idyllic part of Gloucestershire so favoured by Americans, but across the Oxfordshire border, closer to Chipping Norton. The Spectator, quoting “almost impeccable sources”, reported that “a filthy rich Anglo” could be lending his own home to the second family to spare them the deprivations of Airbnb.
“Apparently some senior British political figures, who have knowledge of Cotswolds social scene, are helping the Vance family plan their trip,” the magazine said. Whoever could they mean?
