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A still river under a weeping willow with stone cottages on the far bank

Des Blenkinsopp, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cirencester and the Coln Valley

Cirencester, the Roman town of Corinium, and the River Coln running past Bibury, Coln St Aldwyns and Fairford to meet the Thames by Lechlade.

Nearest station
Kemble, on the line from London Paddington, for Cirencester
Best time
Spring and summer for the river; early or late in the day at Bibury
When it's busy
Bibury on summer weekends, when press reports put visitors at up to 20,000

About Cirencester and the Coln Valley

This is the south-eastern Cotswolds, where the wolds slope down towards the upper Thames. At its centre is Cirencester, the Roman town of Corinium, and running through it is the River Coln, which runs past Bibury and Fairford on its way to the Thames near Lechlade.

Where the valley begins and ends

The Coln rises near Sevenhampton on the high wolds and runs south-east for its whole length through this region: past Withington and Chedworth, under Bibury's Arlington Row, through Coln St Aldwyns and Quenington to Fairford, and into the Thames at Inglesham, just above Lechlade. The Leach runs beside it through Northleach, Eastleach and Southrop, and the Churn through Cirencester. The Fosse Way crosses the valley at Cirencester, where the North Cotswolds begin at Northleach, and south of the town the land flattens into the Cotswold Water Park, more than 170 gravel lakes round South Cerney, before the South Cotswolds start at Tetbury. Most of it is Gloucestershire, in Cotswold district, whose offices are in Cirencester; Inglesham is just over the line in Wiltshire and Kelmscott in Oxfordshire.

Cirencester

Cirencester is the region's market town, with the Corinium Museum's Roman mosaics, a Roman amphitheatre on its edge, a great wool church facing the Market Place and Earl Bathurst's park behind it. Its Charter Market runs on Mondays and Fridays. Our guide to the Roman Cotswolds starts there, and for a bed, see where to stay in Cirencester.

Northleach, on the A40 to the north-east, is the other wool town, with one of the great wool churches, its floor full of merchants' brasses, and the Old Prison, built in the early 1790s, whose cells and courtroom are free to see. Kemble, south-west of Cirencester, is the village with the region's station. The Water Park's Gateway Centre is on the Spine Road at Cerney Wick, by South Cerney; the beach at Cotswold Country Park may have closed, so check with the Cotswold Lakes Trust.

A wide town street of shops leading to a great church tower under a cloudy sky
The Market Place and St John's, Cirencester Photo: Des Blenkinsopp, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Down the Coln

Bibury is the valley's famous village, for Arlington Row and the water meadow of Rack Isle, and its busiest. A few miles downstream, Coln St Aldwyns and Quenington have the same river and stone, a Norman church and a Knights Hospitaller gateway, and few visitors. Fairford has what its parish calls the only complete set of late medieval glass in a parish church in the country, and Lechlade-on-Thames is where the Coln and the Leach meet the Thames, with the river's highest lock and William Morris's Kelmscott Manor nearby.

Above Bibury, Ablington is a hamlet with an Elizabethan manor of 1590 seen from the lane, and Barnsley has Rosemary Verey's garden at Barnsley House, now the hotel THE PIG in the Cotswolds, with the Village Pub opposite. Chedworth, in the next valley, has the Roman villa found in its woods in 1864, with a mosaic that National Trust archaeologists have dated to the fifth century, and Withington a Grade I church with two Norman doorways. Over the Leach, Eastleach is two villages facing each other across the river, St Andrew's and St Michael and St Martin, joined by Keble's Bridge, a clapper bridge of flat slabs. Southrop, downstream, has the Thyme estate and its cookery school. North-west of Cirencester, the Duntisbournes are four hamlets along 2 miles of the Dunt brook, where Duntisbourne Rouse's tiny church has a vaulted chapel under its chancel and fifteenth-century misericords. East of Cirencester, Ampney Crucis has a Grade I medieval cross in its churchyard, which Historic England thinks gave the parish its name, and Holy Rood church keeps its fourteenth-century wall paintings.

A clear shallow river with stepping stones running between reeds and meadow
The River Coln between Bibury and Coln St Aldwyns Photo: Rodw, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sights worth a detour

Rome is the reason to start in Cirencester: the Corinium Museum shows Roman mosaics from a town and district where more than 90 are known, and the amphitheatre, built early in the second century for about 8,000 people, is free on the edge of town, with Cirencester Park and its 8km Broad Ride behind the church, where a day pass is needed. Chedworth Roman Villa is the country house of the same world. Down the valley, Arlington Row is the fourteenth-century wool store turned weavers' cottages, St Mary's at Fairford holds 28 windows of glass made about 1500 to 1515, and below Lechlade, at Kelmscott, Kelmscott Manor, William Morris's home from 1871, Inglesham church, which he saved from restoration, and Father Thames at St John's Lock make a day by the river. The Roman Cotswolds and William Morris carry the stories.

A walker crossing a long flat stone footbridge over a still stream
Keble's Bridge between the two Eastleaches Photo: Russel Wills, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Walks

The National Landscape's 6-mile circuit between Bibury and Coln St Aldwyns follows the river through the water meadows with gates but no stiles. The Quenington to Fairford circuit follows the Coln down through a permitted wood to Fairford, with several stiles, and the Thames Path runs from Lechlade to Kelmscott, about 3 miles.

For the upper valley, Bibury and Ablington climbs the Salt Way over open wold, and Northleach, Hampnett and the Saltway is stile-free and passes Hampnett's painted Norman chancel. Eastleach and the River Leach is 4.4 miles (7.1km) past both churches, muddy from autumn to spring by walkers' reports, with one spot on the way back that is often flooded, Cirencester Park, Pope's Seat and Stratton is the easy town loop, and Lechlade and St John's Lock is flat, 3 miles and about 45 minutes; walkers found the riverside path under water in January and February 2026 and report cattle by the river, so check after rain.

Eating and staying

Bibury's Swan stands by the bridge. The quieter beds are the New Inn at Coln St Aldwyns, the Keepers Arms in Quenington and the Wheatsheaf at Northleach. In Cirencester, Igloo and Sam & Jak are the independent restaurants, the Organic Farm Shop on the Burford road is on a farm where organic conversion began in 1990, and the Bathurst Arms at North Cerney has rooms by the Churn. By the Thames, the Trout Inn at St John's Lock has been an inn since the fifteenth century. Where to stay in Cirencester has the full list.

Getting around

Kemble station is about 4 miles from Cirencester, with the 882 bus. The 855 runs from Cirencester through Bibury and Northleach to Bourton-on-the-Water, the 77 from Cirencester to Fairford and Lechlade, and the 51 to Swindon and Cheltenham, which also runs on Sundays. For the rest of the Cotswolds, see things to do and where to stay.

Kemble is about 70 minutes from Paddington, with a taxi rank and the 882 on about five runs a day from Monday to Saturday. The X52 from Oxford and Cheltenham stops in Northleach, and the Robin minibus covers Bibury, Fairford, Lechlade and Kemble on booking. There is no bus to Bibury on Sundays; check bank holidays with Pulhams. Getting here, the buses page and the Cotswolds without a car have the times.

When to come and where it is busiest

Bibury is the problem and the rest of the valley the answer. Press reports put visitors at up to 20,000 on a peak summer weekend, so see Arlington Row before 10am or after 5pm and walk on down the river, where the crowd soon thins. In September 2026 the parish council agreed to reseed and fence off the grass by Swan Bridge, and to ask the National Trust to do the same by the footbridge to Arlington Row, to keep visitors out of the river there. Cirencester is liveliest on Monday and Friday for the Charter Market, Fairford fills for the Royal International Air Tattoo in mid-July (16 to 18 July in 2027), and Kelmscott Manor opens from April to October. The quiet corners are Eastleach, Southrop and Withington on any day of the year.

A long row of stone cottages with steep roofs beside a lane in autumn
Arlington Row in autumn Photo: Alan Hughes, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Last verified 1 November 2026 by our editors

  • A clear river flowing over stones past reeds and a footbridge
  • A wide clear river past a garden and stone houses with an angler on the bank
  • A humped stone bridge over a river with boats, a church spire beyond
  • A row of stone cottages with mossy roofs and climbing plants above a path
  • Rows of medieval stained-glass figures in deep reds, blues and golds in a church window

Places in Cirencester and the Coln Valley

  • A stone house with climbing roses round the door and a lawn in front, blue sky

    Ablington

    Hamlet · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    A hamlet of Bibury parish a mile up the River Coln from Arlington Row, with the Elizabethan manor where J. Arthur Gibbs wrote A Cotswold Village, a small green and no shop, pub or coach. Walk here from Bibury.

  • A stone church with a battlemented west tower among churchyard tombs under a blue sky

    Ampney Crucis

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    A village on the Ampney Brook 4 miles east of Cirencester, with Holy Rood church, its Grade I medieval churchyard cross and its wall paintings, an old coaching inn by the water and two smaller Ampneys a mile or so away.

  • A village lane curving between stone cottages, clipped yews and a red phone box

    Barnsley

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    An estate village of one street on the Cirencester to Bibury road, with Rosemary Verey's garden behind the wall of Barnsley House, a Norman church and a pub with rooms. Four miles from Cirencester, and quiet.

  • A row of old stone weavers' cottages beside a river under a white sky

    Bibury

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    A village on the River Coln with a row of medieval cottages that draws up to 20,000 visitors on a peak weekend, by press estimates. Come early or late, and walk on down the river.

  • Stone houses half hidden among trees across a steep green valley

    Chedworth

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    A long village down both sides of a steep valley between Cirencester and Northleach, with a Grade I church, a seventeenth-century inn below it, 800 acres of woods with a disused railway through them, and the Roman villa a mile away through the trees.

  • Vehicles parked along a street of tall stone buildings

    Cirencester

    Market town · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    The Roman town of Corinium and the market town of the southern Cotswolds, with a museum of its mosaics, a great wool church, an amphitheatre and Earl Bathurst's park.

  • A village green under a big tree with stone cottages and an old telephone sign

    Coln St Aldwyns

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    Two villages facing each other across the River Coln a few miles below Bibury, with a Norman church, a Knights Hospitaller gateway and a pub, and few visitors.

  • A flat stone clapper bridge across a clear river beside a grassy path

    Eastleach and Southrop

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    Two villages on the River Leach east of the Coln: Eastleach, where two Norman churches face each other across a clapper bridge, and Southrop, a mile and a half downstream, with the Swan and Thyme. Daffodils in spring, hardly a visitor in any season.

  • A timber-gabled stone building at the corner of a small market square

    Fairford

    Market town · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    A small town on the River Coln with the only complete set of late medieval glass in an English parish church, and the home of the Royal International Air Tattoo.

  • A Thames Path fingerpost beside a tree reflected in floodwater in a meadow, blue sky

    Kemble

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    The village with the station for Cirencester and the south Cotswolds, about a mile and a half from the source of the Thames where the Thames Path begins, with a church spire of 1824, the old RAF airfield and the Thames Head Inn on the A433.

  • Stone riverside buildings reflected in the calm Thames

    Lechlade-on-Thames

    Market town · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    The town where the Thames becomes navigable, with the highest lock on the river, a toll bridge and Father Thames, and William Morris's Kelmscott Manor 3 miles away.

  • A gabled stone house with climbing plants beside a quiet lane in sunshine

    Quenington

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    A village of about 600 people on the River Coln between Bibury and Fairford, with two of the finest Norman doorways in the Cotswolds, the gatehouse of a Knights Hospitallers' preceptory, a green, a free house with rooms and a river walk to Fairford.

  • Stone cottages beside a small stream with a stone-edged bank and green verges

    South Cerney

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    A large village on the River Churn south of Cirencester, with a Norman church that once hid a twelfth-century crucifix, the infilled locks of the Thames and Severn Canal and the Cotswold Lakes at the end of the street.

  • Dozens of flooded gravel-pit lakes among fields and trees seen from the air

    The Cotswold Water Park

    Countryside · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    Flooded gravel pits south of Cirencester, now called the Cotswold Lakes: more than 170 lakes on Natural England's count across the Gloucestershire and Wiltshire border, with bird hides, booked open-water swims, the Thames Path and an old railway to cycle.

  • A lane running through a shallow ford past stone cottages in sunshine

    The Duntisbournes

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    Four hamlets along 2 miles of the Dunt, a brook north-west of Cirencester: Duntisbourne Abbots on its hill, Duntisbourne Leer where the lane fords the stream, Middle Duntisbourne and Duntisbourne Rouse, whose tiny church has a crypt and misericords. No pub, no shop, no visitors.

  • A large stone church with a tall pinnacled tower under a clear blue sky

    Withington

    Village · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    A village in two halves either side of the upper Coln, about 6.5 miles from Cheltenham, with a Grade I church, the Mill Inn by the bridge, Withington Woods above and a Roman villa under a field on the road to Chedworth.

Things to do in Cirencester and the Coln Valley

Cirencester and the Coln Valley: things to do
The gabled stone front of Kelmscott Manor beyond its garden path and lawn

Historic houses and heritage · Lechlade-on-Thames

Kelmscott Manor

William Morris's country home by the upper Thames near Lechlade, which he rented from 1871 until 1896, with its rooms, gardens and his grave nearby.

  • A Roman mosaic floor and painted wall plaster displayed in a museum gallery

    Corinium Museum

    Museums and galleries · Cirencester

    Cirencester's museum of Roman Corinium, with the Hare, Four Seasons and Orpheus mosaics, Anglo-Saxon grave goods and medieval sculpture.

    Family-friendly · Rainy days · Car-free

    Verified Oct 2026

  • Grassed earth banks of the Roman amphitheatre with a path and trees

    Cirencester Roman Amphitheatre

    Historic houses and heritage · Cirencester

    The grassy banks of a Roman amphitheatre built early in the second century to hold about 8,000 people, free to visit in daylight on the edge of Cirencester.

    Dog-friendly · Car-free

    Verified Oct 2026

  • Stone farm buildings and trees reflected in a still trout pond at Bibury

    Bibury Trout Farm

    Family days out · Bibury

    A working trout farm on the River Coln at Bibury, founded in 1902, with a café, a shop, catch-your-own fishing and its own pay car park.

    Family-friendly · Dog-friendly

    Verified Oct 2026

Where to stay in Cirencester and the Coln Valley

Cirencester and the Coln Valley: places to stay
  • A bright breakfast room with grey painted chairs, spotted tablecloths and hare pictures on the walls

    Cotswold Hare

    B&B · Cirencester

    A bed and breakfast with seven en suite rooms on Victoria Road, Cirencester, with a parking space for every room, for adults and children over ten.

    Verified Nov 2026

  • The cream-painted front of The Old Brewhouse with window boxes of trailing flowers

    The Old Brewhouse

    B&B · Cirencester

    A bed and breakfast in a 17th-century town house on London Road, Cirencester, with ten rooms in the house and round a courtyard, free parking and a VisitEngland four-star rating.

    Verified Oct 2026

  • The pink-washed Bathurst Arms by the road at North Cerney in summer

    The Bathurst Arms

    Inn · Cirencester

    A pub with five rooms on the River Churn at North Cerney, about five miles north of Cirencester, with a beer garden, food every day and roasts on Sundays.

    Verified Nov 2026

  • Bar room with a log fire in a stone hearth, a wooden floor and settles

    The Village Pub

    Inn · Cirencester

    A pub with six bedrooms in the eaves at Barnsley, about four miles from Cirencester, part of THE PIG group, with gravity-fed ales and steak night on Thursdays.

    Dog-friendly

    Verified Oct 2026

  • The Swan Hotel beside the River Coln and the old stone bridge at Bibury

    The Swan Hotel

    Hotel · Bibury

    A former coaching inn by the bridge over the River Coln in Bibury, part of Cotswold Inns and Hotels, with a brasserie, a lift, a free car park and dog-friendly rooms.

    Dog-friendly · Wedding venues

    Verified Nov 2026

  • The ivy-covered stone front of The New Inn at Coln St Aldwyns

    The New Inn

    Inn · Coln St Aldwyns

    A 16th-century coaching inn with rooms in Coln St Aldwyns, reopened in 2020 by Baz and Fred, with a Garden Suite and food every day.

    Verified Nov 2026

Where to eat and drink in Cirencester and the Coln Valley

Cirencester and the Coln Valley: eat and drink
  • A cooked breakfast with eggs, beans and hash browns on a rustic table

    Igloo

    Restaurants · Cirencester

    A family-run restaurant on Castle Street, Cirencester, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, with coffee, wine and cocktails, and dogs welcome downstairs.

    Dog-friendly

    Verified Nov 2026

  • Timber farm shop with green doors, a veranda and flower beds with sunflowers

    The Organic Farm Shop

    Farm shops and delis · Cirencester

    An organic farm shop and café at Abbey Home Farm on the Burford Road outside Cirencester, which began its organic conversion in 1990, with walks round the farm and EV charging.

    EV charging

    Verified Oct 2026

  • A stone village shop with a glazed porch at a lane junction

    Coln Community Stores

    Cafes and tearooms · Coln St Aldwyns

    The village shop, café and post office on Main Street, Coln St Aldwyns, owned by local residents and the Countryside Alliance's best shop in the south west for 2026.

    Walker-friendly

    Verified Oct 2026

  • Pub dining room with beamed ceiling, wood-burning stove and oak tables

    The Keepers Arms

    Inn · Coln St Aldwyns

    A family-run free house in Quenington with four adults-only bed and breakfast rooms above the pub, independent real ales and dogs welcome.

    Dog-friendly

    Verified Nov 2026

  • A stone inn with steep gables beside a road in spring sunshine

    The Trout Inn

    Pubs · Lechlade-on-Thames

    A family-run pub by St John's Lock at St John's Bridge, Lechlade, recorded as an inn by 1692, with a riverside garden and fishing rights on the Thames.

    Walker-friendly · Family-friendly

    Verified Oct 2026

  • A gabled stone pub with a black sign board on a town street

    Black Horse

    Pubs · Cirencester

    A Marston's pub on Castle Street, Cirencester, with cask ale, a beer garden, three en suite rooms and dogs welcome.

    Dog-friendly

    Verified Oct 2026

Walks in and around Cirencester and the Coln Valley

All walks starting here
  • The stepped gables of Arlington Row rising above a path and green in Bibury

    Bibury, Oxhill Wood and Akeman Street

    Walk · Starts in Bibury · 1 hr, 45 mins · Circular · Dog-friendly

    A 4-mile (6.6km) circular walk from the bridge by the Swan in Bibury, an hour and a half to two hours with a few short, steep climbs. It goes out by the church and up above the Coln to Oxhill Wood, along the line of the Roman Akeman Street and back over farmland to Arlington Row.

  • A low stone bridge over a wide clear river, cottages and willows on the far bank

    Bibury and the River Coln

    Walk · Starts in Bibury · 2 hrs · Circular

    A 4-mile (6.5km) circular walk from the bridge by the Swan in Bibury, about two hours with one climb and a muddy stretch. It crosses the Coln below Bibury Court, climbs through Oxhill Wood to the line of Akeman Street, passes a dewpond and returns by Arlington Row.

  • The stone weavers' cottages of Arlington Row lining a lane that climbs through Bibury

    Bibury and Ablington

    Walk · Starts in Bibury · 1 hr, 45 mins · Circular

    A 5-mile (8.2km) circular walk from Arlington Row in Bibury, an hour and a half to two hours of moderate walking with a few stiles. It goes up Packhorse Lane and the Salt Way over open wold, down to Ablington and its Elizabethan manor, and back beside the River Coln.

Sights in and around Cirencester and the Coln Valley

All sights
  • Tall stone gate piers with ball finials and a wooden gate, gabled manor roofs behind

    Ablington Manor

    Sight · Historic building · Bibury

    Ablington Manor is an Elizabethan house in the hamlet of Ablington near Bibury, dated 1590 for John Coxwell, with five carved royal heads over its porch. Listed Grade I and a private home, it is seen from the lane through the hamlet.

  • A row of steep-roofed stone weavers' cottages stepping along a lane beside a green

    Arlington Row, Bibury

    Sight · Historic building · Bibury

    Arlington Row is a terrace of stone cottages above the mill stream in Bibury, built as a wool store in the late fourteenth century and turned into weavers' homes in the seventeenth. Grade I and owned by the National Trust, the cottages are lived in and seen from the path.

  • Open parkland with the tower of a great church rising above trees beyond

    Cirencester Park

    Sight · Common or park · Cirencester

    The Bathurst family's landscape park on the western edge of Cirencester, planted from 1714 by the first Earl Bathurst with Alexander Pope: 8km of rides and woods along the Broad Ride, with Pope's Seat and Alfred's Hall. Grade I registered; a day pass is needed.

  • A reclining stone statue of a bearded river god behind a low fence by a lock

    Father Thames and St John's Lock

    Sight · Monument · Lechlade-on-Thames

    Raffaelle Monti's reclining river god, modelled in cement for the Crystal Palace in 1854, beside St John's Lock below Lechlade, the first lock on the Thames. He lay at the river's source from 1958 until vandals drove him here in 1974. Grade II.

  • A single-arched stone bridge over the Thames with willows and swans

    Halfpenny Bridge, Lechlade

    Sight · Bridge · Lechlade-on-Thames

    The single tall stone arch that carries Thames Street over the Thames at Lechlade, built under a turnpike Act of 1792, with a little square tollhouse on its corner. Named after the halfpenny walkers paid until 1839. Grade II; free.

  • A flat stone clapper bridge across a clear river beside a grassy path

    Keble's Bridge, Eastleach

    Sight · Bridge · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

    A clapper bridge of flat limestone slabs on rubble piers across the River Leach, the old footbridge between Eastleach Turville and Eastleach Martin, with medieval origins and the name of the Keble family. Grade II; free on a public footpath.

Stories about Cirencester and the Coln Valley

All stories
  • Open grassland with yellow gorse on a high common looking out over a wide vale

    Where are the Cotswolds?

    Story · Guides · 11 minute read

    The Cotswolds are a range of limestone hills in south-central England, a National Landscape of 787 square miles across six counties, most of it in Gloucestershire. Here is where they are, what the boundary includes, and what makes the stone golden.

History of Cirencester and the Coln Valley

Cirencester began as a Roman fort and became Corinium, which the Corinium Museum describes as later the capital of the province of Britannia Prima, with an amphitheatre for 8,000 and the Fosse Way and Akeman Street meeting at its gates. Chedworth's villa, found in 1864, had a mosaic laid as late as the fifth century. After the West Saxons took the town in 577, Henry I began its abbey in 1117, and in the Middle Ages the wool trade made many of the townsmen prosperous. Northleach's merchants, among them William Midwinter, who died in 1501, traded wool from the Leach valley, and John Tame of Fairford, who died in 1500, rebuilt his church and his son filled it with glass. Arlington Row at Bibury was built as a wool store in the late fourteenth century and turned into weavers' homes in the seventeenth. Lechlade had a market by 1210 and became the head of navigation on the Thames, where the Thames and Severn Canal joined the river at the Round House. William Morris rented Kelmscott Manor from 1871 until his death in 1896. In 2026 Gloucestershire County Council set aside £175,000 for a scheme to manage traffic in Bibury.

Questions about Cirencester and the Coln Valley

What is a quieter alternative to Bibury?

Coln St Aldwyns and Quenington, a few miles down the Coln, linked to Bibury by a 6-mile stile-free circuit along the river, with the same river and stone, a Norman church, a Knights Hospitaller gateway and two pubs with rooms. Eastleach, over on the Leach, is quieter still, with its two churches facing each other across the water.

How do I get to Bibury without a car?

Take Pulhams' 855 bus from Cirencester, about 18 minutes, or from Bourton-on-the-Water by way of Northleach, roughly hourly from Monday to Saturday. From London, the train to Kemble and the 882 or a taxi to Cirencester connects with it. There is no bus to Bibury on Sundays (check bank holidays with Pulhams), and the last back to Cirencester leaves at 5.37pm.

What is special about Fairford church?

Its stained glass, 28 windows made about 1500 to 1515, which the parish describes as the only complete set of late medieval glass in a parish church in the country. John Tame, a wool merchant, rebuilt the church in the 1490s and his son Edmund commissioned the windows. The church normally has binoculars for the high ones; ask the steward.

Which villages are in the Coln Valley?

Cirencester and Northleach are the towns, with Fairford and Lechlade-on-Thames at the bottom of the valley. The villages are Withington, Chedworth, Ablington, Bibury, Barnsley, Coln St Aldwyns, Quenington, Eastleach and Southrop, with Kemble by the station and the Cotswold Water Park round South Cerney to the south.

Where is the best base for Bibury and the Coln Valley?

Cirencester, for its hotels, its Roman museum, the 855 bus to Bibury and the 882 to Kemble station, or Coln St Aldwyns and Quenington, if you want to walk to Arlington Row early and have the river to yourself afterwards. Bibury itself is lovely to sleep in and awkward to leave without a car.

Where does the River Coln meet the Thames?

At Inglesham, just above Lechlade, where the old Thames and Severn Canal also joined the river beside the Round House. Lechlade is the head of navigation for larger boats, St John's Lock below the town is the first lock on the Thames, and the Thames Path runs on from there to Kelmscott, about 3 miles.

Getting to Cirencester and the Coln Valley

Map of Cirencester and the Coln Valley
© OpenStreetMap contributors

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