Steve Daniels, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Barnsley
An estate village of one street on the Cirencester to Bibury road, with Rosemary Verey's garden behind the wall of Barnsley House, a Norman church and a pub with rooms. Four miles from Cirencester, and quiet.
- Nearest station
- Kemble, 9 miles, then the 882 bus to Cirencester and the 855 on to Barnsley
- Parking
- No public car park; the Village Pub has a free car park behind it for its customers, and there is a little roadside space on the street
- Best time
- May and June for Barnsley House's laburnum; a summer Saturday when Bibury fills
- When it's busy
- Rarely busy. The street carries the Cirencester to Bibury traffic, so the pavement is the place to walk
- Toilets
- None in the village; the nearest public toilets are in Cirencester (Forum car park) and Bibury (The Street)
- Dogs
- Welcome in the bar and garden of the Village Pub, not in its bedrooms
About Barnsley
Barnsley is a single street of stone cottages on the road between Cirencester and Bibury, 4 miles (7km) from the first and 3 miles from the second. Most of the traffic between the two passes straight through, which is the point: the church, the garden and the pub are a few steps apart, and nobody is queuing for any of them. It grew up as the estate village of Barnsley Park, and it looks it, with the same stone, the same roofs and dated cottages along the street.
What to see
Barnsley House is the reason most people have heard of the village. Brereton Bourchier built it in 1697, and from 1952 it was the home of David Verey, the architectural historian, and his wife Rosemary. In the garden behind its wall she made the laburnum walk, the knot garden and, in the early 1970s, the potager, a kitchen garden laid out in a pattern of brick paths. David Verey brought the little Tuscan temple from Fairford Park in the early 1960s. Rosemary Verey died in May 2001, and the house is now a hotel, THE PIG in the Cotswolds (opens in a new tab). The garden is listed Grade II* in its own right, and it is the hotel's garden, so a meal or a stay there is the usual way in: the hotel invites lunch guests as well as residents to wander the gardens, and gives a free Kitchen Garden tour every day at 11am that anyone can join (let the hotel know on 0345 225 9494 first). It publishes no separate garden-day or garden-only ticket.
St Mary's, across the street, was a chapel of Bibury by 1151 and still has the corbel table of its Norman church, inside the south transept and under the eaves of the chancel. The chancel arch is thirteenth century on sloping Norman piers, the tower is of about 1500 with a top stage of about 1600, and the lancets are the work of James Park Harrison's restoration of 1843 to 1847. The Bourchiers of Barnsley House are on the walls and the floor. It is listed Grade II* (opens in a new tab), and the churchyard has its own listed stile and gate in the north-west corner.
Barnsley Park, the big house north of the village, is Grade I: a baroque house with rainwater heads dated 1720 and 1721, built for Henry Perrot, who had married Bourchier's daughter, with a library by John Nash of about 1811. It is private, and so is its park, but you see the lodges and the wall from the Bibury road. The cottages on the street are the estate village: the Musgraves, who had the park from 1812, dated some of them 1811, 1817 and 1851. Sixty-two buildings and structures in the parish are listed.
An afternoon in Barnsley
Barnsley is a long lunch and a short walk. Book a table at the Village Pub or at the hotel, then walk the street from the pub to the church, 200m or so, reading the dates on the cottages as you go. Go into St Mary's for the Norman corbels and the Bourchier monuments, and out through the stile in the churchyard wall. If you are eating at THE PIG, the garden comes with the meal; if not, the wall along the road is as close as you will get without asking.
With the rest of the afternoon, drive or take the bus the 3 miles to Bibury and see Arlington Row late in the afternoon, when the day visitors thin out, or go the other way into Cirencester for the Corinium Museum. Either way, Barnsley is the quiet end of the day.
Walks
We have no walk that starts in Barnsley. The nearest is Bibury and Ablington, a 5-mile (8.2km) loop over the wold and back along the Coln, which starts 3 miles up the road at Arlington Row. The old road from Barnsley to Ablington was diverted in 1794 to enlarge the park, and the lanes north of the village are quiet enough to walk, but they are lanes, not paths, so keep to the verges.
Food and drink
The Village Pub was the Greyhound. Its listing describes three cottages of the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century converted to an inn, and the Victoria County History has the Greyhound moving here from Greyhound Farm early in the twentieth century; Barnsley had an inn by 1657. It serves lunch every day and dinner from Monday to Saturday, with Thursday steak night, ales drawn from the barrel and six bedrooms under the roof, and it belongs to the same group as the hotel across the road. Dogs are welcome in the bar and the garden, though not in the bedrooms.
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When to come
Late May and June, when the laburnum is out at Barnsley House, is the garden's moment, and the moment to book a table. Otherwise the village is the same in any month, which is to say quiet, and it is one of the places we send people on a summer Saturday when Bibury is at its worst; our guide to the Cotswolds without the crowds has the others. Come on a weekday or a Saturday if you want the bus: the 855 does not run on Sundays.
Last verified 1 November 2026 by our editors
Part of
Cirencester and the Coln Valley
Cirencester, the Roman town of Corinium, and the River Coln running past Bibury, Coln St Aldwyns and Fairford to meet the Thames by Lechlade.
Things to do in Barnsley
Family days out · Bibury
Bibury Trout Farm
A working trout farm on the River Coln at Bibury, founded in 1902, with a café, a shop, catch-your-own fishing and its own pay car park.
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New Brewery Arts
Museums and galleries · Cirencester
A craft centre in Cirencester's old brewery buildings, with free exhibitions of contemporary craft, a shop of British makers' work, makers' studios, the Blend café and over 100 weekly courses and workshops.
Rainy days · Dog-friendly · Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
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Corinium Museum
Museums and galleries · Cirencester
Cirencester's museum of Roman Corinium, with the Hare, Four Seasons and Orpheus mosaics, Anglo-Saxon grave goods and medieval sculpture.
Family-friendly · Rainy days · Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
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Cerney House Gardens
Parks and gardens · Cirencester
A family garden at North Cerney, near Cirencester: a Victorian walled garden with borders and an organic kitchen garden, 40 acres of woodland walks and a self-service tea room, open almost every day of the year.
Dog-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
Where to stay in Barnsley
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The Village Pub
Inn · Cirencester
A pub with six bedrooms in the eaves at Barnsley, about four miles from Cirencester, part of THE PIG group, with gravity-fed ales and steak night on Thursdays.
Dog-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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THE PIG-in the Cotswolds
Hotel · Barnsley
Barnsley House, the 17th-century house with Rosemary Verey's garden, now a 24-bedroom hotel in the PIG group, with a kitchen-garden restaurant and a spa, four miles from Cirencester.
Verified Nov 2026
Where to eat and drink in Barnsley
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The Crown at Ampney Brook
Restaurants · Ampney Crucis
The pub and restaurant of Wild Thyme & Honey at Ampney Crucis, a sixteenth-century coaching inn by the Ampney Brook, formerly the Crown of Crucis, open from breakfast to dinner.
Dog-friendly · Wedding venues
Verified Nov 2026
Walks in and around Barnsley
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Bibury, Oxhill Wood and Akeman Street
Walk · Starts in Bibury · 1 hr, 45 mins · Circular · Dog-friendly
A 4-mile (6.6km) circular walk from the bridge by the Swan in Bibury, an hour and a half to two hours with a few short, steep climbs. It goes out by the church and up above the Coln to Oxhill Wood, along the line of the Roman Akeman Street and back over farmland to Arlington Row.
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Bibury and Ablington
Walk · Starts in Bibury · 1 hr, 45 mins · Circular
A 5-mile (8.2km) circular walk from Arlington Row in Bibury, an hour and a half to two hours of moderate walking with a few stiles. It goes up Packhorse Lane and the Salt Way over open wold, down to Ablington and its Elizabethan manor, and back beside the River Coln.
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Bibury and the River Coln
Walk · Starts in Bibury · 2 hrs · Circular
A 4-mile (6.5km) circular walk from the bridge by the Swan in Bibury, about two hours with one climb and a muddy stretch. It crosses the Coln below Bibury Court, climbs through Oxhill Wood to the line of Akeman Street, passes a dewpond and returns by Arlington Row.
Sights in and around Barnsley
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Ablington Manor
Sight · Historic building · Bibury
Ablington Manor is an Elizabethan house in the hamlet of Ablington near Bibury, dated 1590 for John Coxwell, with five carved royal heads over its porch. Listed Grade I and a private home, it is seen from the lane through the hamlet.
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Arlington Row, Bibury
Sight · Historic building · Bibury
Arlington Row is a terrace of stone cottages above the mill stream in Bibury, built as a wool store in the late fourteenth century and turned into weavers' homes in the seventeenth. Grade I and owned by the National Trust, the cottages are lived in and seen from the path.
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River Coln
Sight · River · Cirencester and the Coln Valley
The limestone river of the south Cotswolds, rising near Sevenhampton and running south-east past Chedworth, Bibury and Arlington Row, Coln St Aldwyns, Quenington and Fairford to join the Thames at Inglesham above Lechlade. Five of our walks follow or cross it.
Getting to Barnsley
- By bus
- The 855 (Pulhams) between Cirencester, Bibury, Northleach and Bourton-on-the-Water stops at Barnsley House and the Village Pub, roughly hourly Monday to Saturday. No Sunday service.
- By train
- Kemble is the nearest station, about 9 miles. Take the 882 bus or a taxi into Cirencester for the 855.
- By car
- On the B4425 between Cirencester and Bibury. There is no public car park; the Village Pub's car park is for its customers.
Access
A single village street. The Village Pub says its bedrooms, in the eaves, have no disabled access, and its car park is gravel
| Bibury | 3.1 mi |
|---|---|
| Cirencester | 4.3 mi |
| Kemble station | 9.3 mi |
| Fairford | 10.6 mi |
| Northleach | 12.4 mi |
| Cheltenham | 18.6 mi |
Places near Barnsley
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BiburyA village on the River Coln with a row of medieval cottages that draws up to 20,000 visitors on a peak weekend, by press estimates. Come early or late, and walk on down the river.
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CirencesterThe Roman town of Corinium and the market town of the southern Cotswolds, with a museum of its mosaics, a great wool church, an amphitheatre and Earl Bathurst's park.
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Coln St AldwynsTwo villages facing each other across the River Coln a few miles below Bibury, with a Norman church, a Knights Hospitaller gateway and a pub, and few visitors.
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The DuntisbournesFour hamlets along 2 miles of the Dunt, a brook north-west of Cirencester: Duntisbourne Abbots on its hill, Duntisbourne Leer where the lane fords the stream, Middle Duntisbourne and Duntisbourne Rouse, whose tiny church has a crypt and misericords. No pub, no shop, no visitors.