• Travelsignposts Home
  • Country Guides
  • City Guides
  • River Cruises
  • Europe Photos
  • About Us

Walking Holidays

  • Home
  • Site Map
  • About Almis
  • Contact us
  • The Walks
  • Walking Experiences
  • Walking Gear
  • Walking Health and Fitness
You are here: Home / Featured / Cotswold Way – Classic Walks Itinerary

Cotswold Way – Classic Walks Itinerary

By Almis Simans 2 Comments

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Cotswold Way: A 164 km national walking trail from Bath to Chipping Campden:

The ruins of Hailes Abbey on the Cotswold Way

England’s classic Cotswold Way walk is a 164 km route that takes walkers along the limestone ridge, the scarp of the Cotswold Edge. It’s a wonderful walking holiday that will take you through England’s heart.

The walk can be done in as little as 8 days, but for a more pleasurable walking experience 11 days is recommended.  In planning an itinerary, some of the considerations in determining the distance for each day should include the type of terrain, the accommodation, weather, time of year and how fit one is.

The following is an outline of the 11-day walk itinerary that we chose.  We decided on this itinerary because of the reasonable distances and the available accommodation.

Begin at: Bath, England.
How to get there: Trains or buses from London’s Victoria Station to Bath. Then take a taxi to your accommodation.

Walking itinerary:

Day 1.  Bath – Cold Ashton (16km)
– After looking at the Roman Baths and the Jane Austen Centre, a glorious walk through Regency and Victorian Bath and out to the countryside. The Way crosses some main roads before arriving at the quiet village of Cold Ashton.

Day 2.  Chipping Sodbury (17.5km)
Some hill climbing today. One thing that starts to become apparent today is the walk’s mix of farms, pastures, woods, country estates, golf courses and little villages. And these sites will be repeated from time to time along the Cotswold Way.

Day 3.  Wotton-under-edge (17.5km)
The Way now starts to become a little simpler and for much of the day it follows the extensive limestone scarp quite faithfully, climbing to the heights and down again to the vale several times. Visit St. Adeline’s Church in Little Sodbury (William Tyndale preached here). The Somerset monument, after a military commander, Somerset who served under Wellington at Waterloo. We reach  Wotton-under-edge, once a wool town.

Day 4.  Dursley (11km)
This section has many ups and downs and is typical of the Cotswolds. Over the next two days you will ascend and descend about 830 metres, so prepare yourself for some fine, if energetic walking. Visit the Tyndale monument on Nibley Knoll. After the descent from the Knoll there is another walk up to Stinchcombe Hill before the final walk into Dursley.

Day 5.  Randwick (11.5km)
After Dursley we come to Cam Long Down, an isolated wedge of hill, a detached outlier of the main Cotswold scarp. The Cotswold way climbs its western spur and traverses its whole length. We visit Hetty Pegler’s Tump  and Nymphsfield Long Barrow, Neolithic burial mounds. We walk through a number of villages such as Middleyard Kings Stanley before making it to Randwick.

Day 6.  Painswick (14.5km)
On the way is Standish Wood and the marvellous open top of Haresfield Beacon. Today we walk through some other delightful woods, Cliff Wood, Halliday’s Wood and Maitland’s Wood. We walk through Edge and have our first glimpse of the wonderful Cotswold village of Painswick.

Day 7.  Birdlip (11.5km)
After visiting Painswick’s fine St. Mary’s Church and the Rococo Gardens, today’s walk is through a mix of fields, pastures, downland, woodland, villages and small townscapes, with excellent viewpoints from the edge of the Cotswold scarp. A varied itinerary today. First a climb up to Painswick Beacon, an Iron Age Hill Fort. Then down to Prinkash Abbey to visit this relatively modern Benedictine monastery. Further along we come to Cooper’s Hill where the annual cheese rolling events are held. If you have the time you will be able to visit Witcombe Roman Villa with its fine Roman mosaics.

Day 8.  Langett (near Cheltenham) (25km)
We first walk up Crickley Hill, a Neolithic settlement and then on to Leckhampton Hill and the Devil’s Chimney, the symbol of the Cotswolds. Then to Seven Springs – claimed as an alternative early source of the Thames. Further on are Chatcombe and Lineover Woods, before we arrive at Langett and our B&B on the shore of the Dowdswell Reservoir.

Day 9.  Winchcombe (11km)
We bypass the large spa city of Cheltenham and walk up Cleeve Hill, great views. We descend to a velley and then continue uphill (again) and come to Belas Knap, a magnificent Neolithic Long Barrow, built 5,000 years ago. Further along we take the alternative route to Sudeley Castle and spend a few hours exploring the former home of Katherine Parr, one of King Henry’s wives. We then walk the remaining few kilometres into Winchcombe.

Day 10.  Stanton (13km)
Today is another day full of wonder as we walk to Hailes Abbey, on of the most famous pilgrimage sites during medieval times. We walk through two delightful Cotswold villages, Stanway and Stanton. Then we pay a visit to Snowshill Manor, the work of a tireless collector.

Day 11.  Chipping Campden (16km) – your destination! 
More ups and downs – what did you expect? From Stanton we walk to Broadway and the well-known upmarket Lygon Arms Hotel. Then to the folly known as Broadway. Then a pleasant walk to Fish Hill, Mile Drive and Drover’s  Hill and we’re there. Visit St James and the Jacobean Market Hall.

How to get back from Chipping Campden: Bus to Stratford-Upon-Avon, train to London.

Our Take: There is a lot to see on this 164 km journey across northern England. A good option is to spend an extra day in Bath to explore this fine Victorian-era town.

See the Cotswold information for walkers here

Click here to get a free PDF of this post

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Featured, The Walks Tagged With: Cotswold Way accommodation, Cotswold Way itinerary, Cotswold Way route, Cotswold Way walk, walking holidays, walking in england

Comments

  1. avatarCarrie says

    August 19, 2011 at 2:02 pm

    Uh, Bath is of the Georgian/Regency era, not Victorian. Guessing your walking holidays will not be filled with historical accuracy…

    Reply
    • avatarTony Page says

      August 21, 2011 at 8:44 pm

      Actually,Carrie, you’ll see Almis wrote “Regency and Victorian Bath” in the post, which is right! So maybe an apology to poor Almis is in order…

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You can also find us on

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Latest Additions

  • Walking in the Cotswolds
  • Cotswold Way – A Six-Day Ramble in the Cotswolds
  • The Cotswold Way Walk – Our Walking Experience
  • Did Hadrian build Hadrian’s Wall – We find out on our walk
  • Drinking water for folks on Walking Holidays

Plan and Book Your Trip






eNews and Updates

feedburner Sign up now to get emailed news as well as other site updates!

Get the Guerrilla Travel Photography ebook here now!
City Guides
Country Guides
River Cruises

Who is behind Travelsignposts?

Helen and Tony Page at Singapore Changi Airport

We're Helen and Tony Page, and we love travelling - lucky as we've been doing it for the last few decades!

Tony has long been a professional photographer and writer, but Helen now writes most of the posts and takes a lot of photos herself!

Travelsignposts is our main travel planning site, but we've just launched Travelsignposts China and Tony also runs the Travelsignposts Photo and Guerrilla Travel Photography web sites, as well as publishing the Take Better Digital Photos and Guerrilla Travel Photography eBooks.

Read more about Helen and Tony or contact them.

Other Countries

  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia
  • Czech Republic
  • Devon & Cornwall
  • England
  • Estonia
  • Europe (General)
  • Finland
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Portugal
  • Scotland
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • Ukraine

Resources

  • Take Better Digital Photos eBook Take Better Digital Photos eBook
  • Take Better Digital Photos Free eCourse
  • Travel Signposts Photo – our main travel photography site
  • Guerrilla Travel Photography eBook Guerrilla Travel Photography eBook

Copyright © 2022 ·Lifestyle Pro Theme · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress · Log in

Get a free PDF of this post!
Just enter your email address below and we'll send it to you immediately.

Please enter your Email Address