Blockley

What to see

The church and the brook are the two things to see, and the street between them has the rest. St Peter and St Paul, by the square, dates from about 1180: the late twelfth-century chancel keeps its Norman scalloped capitals, the clerestory was added in 1636 and 1637 with a porch of 1630 carrying a sundial, and the west tower went up from 1725, attributed to Edward or Thomas Woodward, the masons of Chipping Campden. Inside are a fifteenth-century chancel screen and memorials to the Childes and the Rushouts of Northwick Park, among them busts by Rysbrack. It is listed Grade II*, open daily from about 8.30am to 5.30pm, and television viewers know it as St Mary's, Kembleford, in the BBC's Father Brown, with the vicarage as the presbytery.

Down the High Street, the Russell Spring is a small gabled niche with a spout under the raised walkway, inscribed with the words Water from the Living Rock, God's Precious Gift to Man. Unemployed men built the wall above it one winter in the middle of the nineteenth century under Richard Belcher, the parish waywarden, and the spring is named for Lucy Russell, who worked the mill nearby from about 1800 to 1820 and died in 1858. The mills are along the brook below the street: Domesday counted twelve in the parish, Henry Whatcot, who died in 1718, built the first silk mill, five were working by 1780, and all but one are now houses. Northwick Park, on the Campden road, is private.

A morning or a day here

A morning is the church, the street and the spring; a day adds a walk. Park by the church if you can, look into St Peter and St Paul, then walk down the High Street on the raised pavement to the Russell Spring and on to the bottom of the village, where the brook runs behind the mills. The Great Western Arms on Station Road, a Hook Norton pub with a patio, is the lunch stop from Friday to Sunday, when it opens at midday; from Monday to Thursday it opens at 5pm, so eat at Blockley Café on Bell Lane or bring lunch.

In the afternoon take one of the two short walks from the village, or drive to Batsford Arboretum, open every day with a café, and Bourton House Garden at Bourton-on-the-Hill, open from Tuesday to Friday between April and mid-October (the 2026 season ended on 16 October). Two days in the North Cotswolds stops here on its second morning, between Batsford and Chipping Campden.

Walks from Blockley

Two walks start in the village and one arrives in it. Blockley and Norcombe Wood is 3 miles (5km) from Park Road at the top of the village, about an hour and a quarter, with one longer climb beside Northwick Park into the wood, bluebells in late April, pheasants and a shooting estate in season, and mud; it comes back down the brook valley through the mills. Blockley and Batsford Park is 4.9 miles (7.9km) from Bell Lane, about two and a quarter hours, up Pasture Lane, down to Batsford's church and through the park past the arboretum, with two climbs and deep mud in winter.

From the north, Chipping Campden to Blockley is the Cotswolds National Landscape's 9-mile (14.5km) circuit from the Noel Arms by Broad Campden, the Monarch's Way and Norcombe Wood, about three and three quarter hours with 306m of climbing, five stiles and 200m of busy road; Blockley is its halfway lunch. It is among our half-day walks; see also the shorter Chipping Campden from Broad Campden.

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Food and drink

Blockley has one pub we can vouch for. The Great Western Arms, on Station Road at the bottom of the village, is a Hook Norton Brewery pub with Hook Norton cask ales, a patio of five tables and its own car park, where walkers are welcome to leave a car; it opens from midday on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and from 5pm on other days. Food is served Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 9pm, Friday lunch and dinner, Saturday from noon to 3pm and 5pm to 9.30pm and Sunday from noon to 4pm, with none on Monday or Tuesday, and dogs are welcome. The old Crown Inn on the High Street now trades as the Crown Hotel (opens in a new tab), an inn with rooms, some of them for guests with dogs; its bar and Rafters restaurant are open to non-residents from 8am (8.30am at weekends) to 10pm, with dinner from 5pm to 8.30pm and Sri Lankan dishes beside the British ones. Blockley Café on Bell Lane is open every day for walk-in breakfast and lunch from 9am to 5pm, 363 days a year, with dinner by booking from 6.30pm; dogs are welcome downstairs.

When to come

A weekday, for the parking. Blockley has no car park, and street parking is tight on fine weekends; there is on-street parking by the church and within 250m of it, and the Great Western Arms on Station Road welcomes walkers to leave a car in its car park. Late April is the time for Norcombe Wood, when the bluebells are out and the rape is yellow in the fields; autumn is the time for Batsford's trees and the walk from Campden; in winter both village walks are deep in mud.