This little village with its classical Cotswold beauty, all its houses built of stone, many with stone tile rooves, and sitting on a tributary of the famous Windrush river, is the last place you would imagine had built its success on heavy industry.
The Domesday Book records a quarry at Taynton. The Limestone Formation on which Taynton is built is a Middle Jurassic Cotswold limestone.

It is a high-quality freestone; that means it is excellent for carving and for use as ashlar cut stone. For centuries it has been used for these purposes. The quarries, now all disused, are on the east side of the valley of Coombe Brook, the Windrush tributary I have mentioned, starting half a mile north of the village and extending another one and a half miles up the valley.
The list of buildings we all know and love that have been built of the stone from this village is truly extraordinary.

You could say that this extraordinary village is the source of much of the breathtaking beauty of the grand buildings of the Cotswolds.
It seems to me extraordinary that the peaceful gentle village that we see today survived the upheaval involved in digging these huge quantities of stone from the ground and transporting them, by horse and cart, to all points in England.
These days a different activity disturbs the peace of this village, which sits on a bend in the small road running down the Windrush valley between Burford and Great Barrington. Indeed, while we were there, we saw a 21st century coachload of people making the trip, with their obligatory guide sitting at the front giving them a running commentary. Clearly this village is on the tourist trail and I am not in the least surprised. It’s a wonderful little road to drive down and drink in the Cotswold scenery.