Bibury, Oxhill Wood and Akeman Street

The Bibury, Oxhill Wood and Akeman Street walk is a 4-mile (6.6km) circular route from the bridge by the Swan in Bibury. It takes an hour and a half to two hours, with about 102m of short, steep climbs, and follows the line of a Roman road above the River Coln before coming back down to Arlington Row.

It covers much of the same ground as our Bibury and the River Coln walk from the National Landscape's leaflet, on a slightly different line.

Bibury before the crowds

The best time to start is early or midweek, because Bibury is busy and the crowds stay in the village. It takes up to 20,000 visitors on a peak weekend, by press estimates that a county council report repeats, and walkers on this loop describe the start as packed and parking as the hardest part of the day. Within a few minutes of leaving the village the crowds thin out, and several walkers who started at 7am or midweek in winter had the paths almost to themselves. Our guide to the Cotswolds without the crowds has more on when to come.

The Swan, where the walk starts, is a coaching inn recorded as an inn from 1672 and said to have held the manor courts, with the village lock-up just north of it. Beside the bridge is Bibury Trout Farm, founded in 1902. St Mary's church, Grade I, has Saxo-Norman fabric of the mid to late eleventh century, enlarged in the late twelfth and early thirteenth.

Bibury Court and the mill

The two big buildings by the river at the start of the climb are Bibury Court and Bibury Mill. Close to the church, Bibury Court is a large house of the late sixteenth century with a range dated 1633 for Sir Thomas Sackville, whose arms are over the doorway and whose initials are carved in the porch; it is listed Grade I, and it was converted to a hotel in 1968. Bibury Mill is recorded from 1608; it was still grinding corn in 1920 and disused by 1934.

Akeman Street

The Roman part of the walk is a short stretch of Coneygar Road at the top of the climb, which runs on the line of Akeman Street. Here the Roman road marks the southern edge of Bibury parish, on its way west to Cirencester, and our story on the Roman Cotswolds follows it across the county. The byway back runs over high, open farmland, where walkers mention wind, birds of prey and long views back to the village.

Arlington Row and Rack Isle

The loop ends along Arlington Row, a Grade I terrace built in the late fourteenth century as a wool store and turned into weavers' cottages in the late seventeenth. The Royal Society of Arts repaired it in 1929 and the National Trust, which owns it, restored it in the early 1970s; the cottages are private homes. Rack Isle opposite is the Trust's water meadow, and the Trust asks for dogs on leads on the path in front of the Row and round the meadow. You will often read that William Morris called Bibury the most beautiful village in England, but as our piece on William Morris explains, nobody has found where he said it.

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What walkers report

Walkers rate the climbs as a few short hills rather than anything hard, but warn of steep dirt sections that are slippery in the wet. Walkers found the paths deep in mud after heavy rain in November 2025 and again in January 2026, so wear boots from autumn to spring. The fields can hold livestock, so keep dogs close. There is nowhere to buy food or drink once you leave the village.

Parking, toilets and the bus

The bus is the easiest way to this walk, because parking in Bibury is scarce. There is no council car park, and 651 parking penalty notices were issued in the village in 2025, against 28 in 2019. Walkers describe the paid car parks as busy and expensive, so come early or take the 855 bus from Cirencester or Bourton, Monday to Saturday; our page on the Cotswolds without a car has more. The public toilets are on The Street (50p).

Longer walks from Bibury

Two other loops start close by. Bibury and Ablington heads up the Coln the other way, over the wold to an Elizabethan manor, and the loop from Coln St Aldwyns shares this one's southern half.