Swinbrook, Fulbrook and Widford

The Swinbrook, Fulbrook and Widford walk is a 4.3-mile (6.9km) easy loop from the Swan Inn at Swinbrook, on the Windrush 2 miles east of Burford. It climbs about 126m and takes about two hours, over the fields to Fulbrook and down a wooded valley to Widford's church in a field, ending by the Mitford graves at St Mary's.

St Mary's and the Mitfords

St Mary's, Swinbrook, at the end of the walk, is where Nancy, Unity and Diana Mitford are buried, near the porch; their parents lie elsewhere in the churchyard. Our story on famous people with Cotswold connections has more on the family.

The church itself has eleventh-century origins, a north aisle of the twelfth century and a tower of about 1822. Its listing singles out the Fettiplace monuments in the chancel: two, of about 1613 and 1686, each show three reclining figures stacked on shelves under ornate arches, and a third, of 1743, is a marble bust by James Annis. The choir stalls are fifteenth century, and three groups of chest tombs in the churchyard are listed too.

Near the start, Swinbrook Manor House is a sixteenth-century hall house with eighteenth-century additions.

Fulbrook and the fields

The first half of the walk climbs gently out of the valley on a lane north of Swinbrook, then crosses open fields west to Fulbrook, on the edge of Burford. Fulbrook's church of St James the Great is about 100m off the route: its listing gives it a twelfth-century round-arched south doorway and a thirteenth-century open porch. The way back east is along a lane for about two-thirds of a mile, after only a few metres on Fulbrook Hill, the A361.

Between the lanes the paths are public footpaths: Swinbrook and Widford footpaths 7, 5 and 10 on the way out, Fulbrook footpath 7 into Fulbrook, and footpaths 4 and 1 down the valley and along the river. There is a stile on the riverside path, and gates into St Mary's churchyard at the end.

Widford's church in a field

St Oswald's, Widford, the church the last leg drops down to, stands alone in a field above the river on the site of a Roman villa. Fragments of Roman mosaic floor survive below the chancel floor. Inside are medieval wall paintings, eighteenth-century box pews and a pulpit probably made from a fifteenth-century screen. From there a riverside path leads east to Swinbrook.

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What walkers report

The roads are walkers' main complaint, in the handful of reviews that describe this exact loop. Two walkers in June 2026 reported a fair amount of road walking, and one of them found the roads unpleasant with a dog.

Walkers on our longer Burford loop, which shares the valley path, report sheep and cows in the fields along the river, so keep dogs on a lead near livestock. They also found the river meadows at Burford under water in January and February 2026, and the Swan's own walk notes for Swinbrook and Widford warn that the paths may be muddy after rain.

The Swan, parking and places to stay

The pub on this walk is the Swan Inn, at the start and finish on the Windrush at Swinbrook, with a restaurant and bedrooms in its stables and a riverside cottage. In Burford, the Lamb Inn has rooms and welcomes dogs, and our places to stay in Burford has more.

Our sources give no public car park in Swinbrook, and the Swan's website says nothing about parking for walkers. The nearest public car park we know is Guildenford in Burford, which West Oxfordshire District Council runs free, and from there the longer walk below takes in the same fields.

Longer and shorter walks

The longer version of this loop is our 6-mile walk from Burford by Fulbrook and Widford, which shares these fields and the valley path and starts from the Guildenford car park. The Burford town walk is a short loop of the town itself, and Minster Lovell and Crawley is further down the Windrush, towards Witney. For more walks with a dog, see our guide to the dog-friendly Cotswolds.