The largest excavation of Jurassic period echinoderm fossils, including of rare and previously unknown species, occurred at a quarry in the Cotswolds in 2021.[1][2] There is evidence of Neolithic settlement from burial chambers on Cotswold Edge, and there are remains of Bronze and Iron Age forts.[3] Later the Romans built villas, such as at Chedworth,[4] settlements such as Gloucester, and paved the Celtic path later known as Fosse Way.[5]

During the Middle Ages, thanks to the breed of sheep known as the Cotswold Lion, the Cotswolds became prosperous from the wool trade with the continent, with much of the money made from wool directed towards the building of churches. The most successful era for the wool trade was 1250–1350; much of the wool at that time was sold to Italian merchants. The area still preserves numerous large, handsome Cotswold Stone "wool churches". The affluent area in the 21st century has attracted wealthy Londoners and others who own second homes there or have chosen to retire to the Cotswolds.[6]

The name Cotswold is popularly believed to mean the "sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides",[7][8] incorporating the term wold, meaning hills. Compare also the Weald, from the Old English term meaning 'forest'. But for many years the English Place-Name Society has accepted that the term Cotswold is derived from Codesuualt of the 12th century or other variations on this form, the etymology of which is "Cod's-wold", meaning "Cod's high open land".[9] Cod was interpreted as an Old English personal name, which may be recognised in further names: Cutsdean, Codeswellan, and Codesbyrig, some of which date to the 8th century.[10] It has subsequently been noticed that Cod could derive philologically from a Brittonic female cognate Cuda, a hypothetical mother goddess in Celtic mythology postulated to have been worshipped in the Cotswold region.[11][12]