The Cotswold Way: A review

The Cotswold Way

The Cotswold Way runs for 102 miles from Chipping Camden to Bath. It was originally developed as a long-distance footpath in 1970, and was formally launched as a National Trail in 2007, with some changes to the route.

I have described our experiences of walking the Cotswold Way in a number of postings (listed below). It now seems time to stand back and offer some reflections. I will divide them into two broad categories: our experience of walking the Way and the route itself. Reviewing the route also identifies a number of places we would like to go back to and investigate further.


Our experience

We agreed that it had been a good idea! The things that the four of us liked were many and varied: wonderful views, friendly people (especially the guy who brought us tea near Birdlip), appreciating how the geography fits together, hospitable pubs, deepening our friendship, little villages, discovering new places on our own doorstep, not too many golf courses, good signposting, great fun, variety, catching up with each other's news, working out the ramifications of the two-car model, learning about butterflies, learning about geology, the miraculous weather, finding that we were all up to it, taking photos, the way it managed to be in country right to the end, how we got fitter and increased our expectations of what we could do.

It was a good move to go from Chipping Camden to Bath. It felt a better place to end up.

We all felt our guide book had been a great help. It took some getting used to, but once mastered was invaluable. The Cotswold Way by Tricia and Bob Hayne (Trailblazer Publications, 2009).


The route

The route follows the edge of the Cotswold escarpment virtually all the way, so there was a long series of fantastic views off to our right. Some personal highlights were views from Wistley Hill, Crickley Hill, Ring Hill / Haresfield Hill and Cam Long Down. (These and other places mentioned can all be located using the search facility above.)

We also passed through many lovely towns and villages, notably Broadway, Painswick, Winchcombe, Wotton-under-Edge and Stanton.

We saw some lovely churches, of which All Saints at Selsley was perhaps our favourite for its Morris and Co stained glass. Hailes Abbey and its nearby church were also very special.

Other especially interesting buildings and structures were: Broadway Tower, the Tyndale Monument and the Market House at Dursley.

Throughout there was a great sense of history: from stone age barrows, to iron age hill forts and civil war and later battles.

And finally, there were many nice pubs, of which the Mount at Stanton was a particular favourite.


Places to go back to and explore properly

Snowshill Manor
Stanway House
Sudeley Castle
Painswick Rococo Garden
Dyrham Park
Beckford's Tower


 Stages

1 Chipping Camden to Broadway Tower

2 Broadway Tower to Stanton

3 Stanford to Hailes Abbey

4 Hailes Abbey to Cleeve Hill

5 Cleeve Hill to Seven Springs

6 Seven Springs to Birdlip

7 Birdlip to Painswick

8 Painswick to Randwick 

9 Randwick to Coaley Peak

10 Coaley Peak to Wotton-under-Edge

11 Wotton-under-Edge to Hawkesbury Upton

12 Hawkesbury Upton to Tormarton

13 Tormarton to Cold Ashton

14 Cold Ashton to Bath