Cleeve Hill

What to see

The common is the sight: about 405 hectares of open limestone grassland and old quarries that walkers can roam freely, grazed by Belted Galloway cattle all year and by the commoners' sheep from April to November. From its western edge Cheltenham lies directly below, and the view runs over the Vale of Evesham to the Malverns and the Black Mountains. The Cleeve Common Trust, which manages it, is careful to say that the 330m top is a trig point on a flat plateau with little to see, while the edge trig, about 13m lower, has the view.

South along the cliff of Cleeve Cloud are the ramparts of Cleeve Hill camp, an Iron Age fort of about 500 BC, cut back by quarrying and golf until about a third of its circle survives. Look too for the Washpool, a sheep dip of 1897 that the Trust restored, and Huddlestone's Table, a stone block below the cliff. Below the common's northern edge are the tithe barn at Postlip and St James's Chapel.

The golf course has been on the common since 1891, and the club says the course was laid out by Old Tom Morris. It is open to visitors who book, and walkers share the ground with it: take care crossing the fairways.

A morning on Cleeve Hill

Park at the Quarry car park by the golf club, or come up on the W bus, and walk the 4-mile loop of Cleeve Common and Cleeve Cloud: across the common past the golf club, back along the scarp by the hill fort and the cliffs, and down through Thrift Wood. It takes about an hour and three quarters. Come back to Flynn's on the Hill, the café at the golf club, or to the Rising Sun for lunch with the view.

Walks

Two sections of the Cotswold Way meet at the golf club. Winchcombe to Cleeve Hill, 5.6 miles, climbs by Sudeley to Belas Knap and comes over to the golf club by Postlip's Norman chapel. Cleeve Hill to Dowdeswell, 5.5 miles, follows Cleeve Cloud and crosses the common before dropping through a wood to Dowdeswell reservoir. For a full day from Winchcombe, the 9.2-mile loop by Belas Knap and Cleeve Common crosses the top.

Food and drink

The Rising Sun (opens in a new tab) is a Greene King pub and hotel on the main road with a beer garden that looks across the vale. It has 23 bedrooms, two of them for dogs, and it is built over several levels reached only by stairs. Greene King gives its food times as 11am to 9pm from Monday to Thursday, to 9.30pm on Fridays and Saturdays and to 8.30pm on Sundays. Flynn's on the Hill, at the golf clubhouse, is open every day for coffee, drinks, snacks and cakes, with a fuller menu from Tuesday to Sunday, and welcomes dogs in the bar; ring the golf club for its hours. The Cleeve Hill Hotel, a 12-room bed and breakfast below the common with a boot room for walkers, serves no dinner, so its guests eat at the Rising Sun or in Cheltenham.

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When to come

Come in June and July for the orchids and the butterflies on the grassland, on a clear winter day for the longest views, or at sunset for the light over the Severn Vale. The hill is exposed, and it can be cold and windy in any month. Cheltenham Racecourse is directly below the hill, and the Cheltenham Festival (16 to 19 March 2027) and the November Meeting bring the crowds. In mid-May the Winchcombe Cotswolds Walking Festival brings guided walks over the common.