Broadway and Broadway Tower

The Broadway and Broadway Tower walk is a 4-mile (6.5km) circular route from the war memorial in Broadway up to Broadway Tower, 312m up on Beacon Hill. It takes two and a half to three hours, is moderate with steep sections and has no stiles. There is a café by the tower and the Lygon Arms at the end.

It is the second of the Cotswolds National Landscape's Cotswold Way Circular Walks: it climbs by an old church and a medieval lane and comes back down on the Cotswold Way. The National Landscape last reviewed the route in April 2026.

St Eadburgha's and Coneygree Lane

The way up leaves Broadway by the fields to St Eadburgha's church and climbs Coneygree Lane. From the High Street the walk goes by the activity park and crosses fields, one of them ridge and furrow, to Snowshill Road. St Eadburgha's stands beside the road, outside the village. The leaflet says parts of it go back to the eleventh century. Its listing dates most of the church to about 1400, with remains of the late twelfth century, and grades it I; the pulpit and choir benches keep some medieval carved woodwork. It was restored in 1866.

Opposite the church, Coneygree Lane climbs for half a mile. The leaflet says it takes its name from a medieval free rabbit warren, granted here by Henry III in 1251. Beyond it, the route goes by field paths and farm tracks to Rookery Farm and the country park around the tower.

Broadway Tower

Broadway Tower is a folly of 1798, and the high point of the walk. James Wyatt built it for the Earl of Coventry, with three round turrets and four storeys, and it is listed Grade II. Its listing records that Sir Thomas Phillipps ran a printing press in it from 1822 to 1862, and that William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones stayed there. It opened to visitors in 1976 and is family-owned today, in a 200-acre estate with a herd of red deer.

The leaflet calls this the second highest point in the Cotswolds, with views as far as South Wales, and says that from the top of the tower you can see 13 counties on a clear day; the tower’s own site claims 16. The tower charges for entry; walkers without a ticket are asked to keep to the two signposted public footpaths through the park. When we checked, the tower museum opened 10am to 5pm daily from April to October (last admission 4.45pm), and from November to March 10.30am to 4pm on weekdays and 10am to 4.30pm at weekends. Near it, a memorial stone marks where a Whitley bomber crashed on 2 June 1943, killing its five crew, and a Royal Observer Corps bunker, in use from 1960 to 1991, opens for booked tours.

Down the Cotswold Way

The way down is a mile of the Cotswold Way, with a dry-stone wall on your right most of the way. The leaflet says volunteers have been restoring the wall over many years. There is one flight of steps, and the path levels out near the bottom, crosses a stream and comes into Broadway by an alley onto the High Street.

The Lygon Arms, on the High Street, has been there since the seventeenth century. Its listing records a frieze on the front, by the doorway, dated 1620 with the names of John and Ursula Treavis, and grades it II*. The parish council says Broadway was a staging post on the coach road from Worcester to London in the 1600s.

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Food and drink

There is a café at the top and plenty to eat at the bottom. The café is at Broadway Tower Country Park; check its opening hours before you set off. Back in the village, the Lygon Arms is a hotel with a grill restaurant, and dogs are welcome. Russell's of Broadway, a restaurant with rooms, is on the High Street too, and the leaflet notes many other cafés and pubs.

Parking, buses and toilets

Park in one of Broadway's car parks, which the leaflet places off Cheltenham Road, behind the High Street and off Leamington Road. The start is in the postcode WR12 7AA. Buses reach Broadway from three directions: the 606 from Cheltenham and Chipping Campden, Monday to Saturday, Stagecoach’s 1 and 2 between Stratford-upon-Avon and Moreton-in-Marsh by way of Chipping Campden, and Cresswells’ R4 from Evesham on weekdays. There are public toilets in Broadway, among them one at the activity park on the way out, open from 8am to 6pm. For a night or two, see places to stay in Broadway.

Paths, gates and dogs

There are no stiles, but there are steep sections and some mud. Expect field gates, two 2-in-1 gates on the way up, tall gates at the tower, a small footbridge and one flight of steps on the way down. The ground near the first field gates turns muddy after wet weather. The leaflet calls the walk moderate with some steep sections, and the stretch of Snowshill Road has traffic. Broadway Tower asks for dogs to be kept on leads in its park, because of the deer, and does not allow them in the tower museum.

Longer walks from Broadway

Broadway sits on the Cotswold Way, with walks along the edge in both directions. For a quieter loop from the village, Broadway, Pye Corner and the Cotswold Way goes south across the fields. The Cotswold Way runs on from Broadway south by Shenberrow and Stanton, 6.5 miles to Wood Stanway, and the National Landscape's circular walk from Stanton to Snowshill takes in the same edge further south. Northwards, the trail comes from Chipping Campden, 6 miles away, where the walk to Dover's Hill starts at the Market Hall. Snowshill and its manor are about 3 miles from Broadway by road.