Leckhampton Hill and the Devil's Chimney

The Leckhampton Hill and Devil's Chimney walk is a 4-mile (6.3km) circular walk from Daisy Bank Road above Cheltenham, on the scarp of the Cotswold Edge. It climbs about 199m and takes about two hours, with one long climb and a steep descent on the old quarry incline, past an Iron Age hillfort, the Devil's Chimney and views over Cheltenham.

A hill made by quarrying

Most of the rock faces you see are quarry faces. The Friends of Leckhampton Hill, a local group formed in 2000, say the Romans took stone from here, and that the last recorded quarrying ran for about 150 years, from the late eighteenth century to the mid 1920s. Around 1875 the quarries produced about 8,000 tons a year, and around 1915 about 50 men worked on the hill. The best stone was carved for interiors, some of it in Cheltenham College chapel, but most went for road stone, gravel and lime.

Tramroads, railways and inclines carried the stone down the hill, and many of today's tracks follow them: the main way up from Daisy Bank Road is the Standard Gauge Incline, built for a redevelopment in the 1920s. Part way up, four large limekilns were built in the early 1920s with a government loan meant to ease unemployment after the First World War. The venture failed and closed by 1927; the stonework of the kiln bases survives beside the path.

The Devil's Chimney, the pillar of rock below the scarp edge, is part of the same story. The likeliest explanation, the Friends say, is that cutting an incline to the top left a piece of rock isolated, which then weathered, perhaps with a hand from the quarrymen.

Hillfort, rocks and flowers

On top, Leckhampton Camp is an Iron Age hillfort with a single rampart on its south and east sides; the trig point stands on the east rampart. Nearby is a round barrow inside a square enclosure. Both are scheduled monuments. The quarries expose a section of Jurassic limestone about 70m thick, laid down in a shallow sea 170 to 175 million years ago, which is why the hill is a Site of Special Scientific Interest; our page on where the Cotswolds are notes it shows some of the thickest Jurassic rock in the country.

The limestone grassland grows common rock-rose, wild thyme, autumn gentian and orchids, and 33 species of butterfly have been recorded, including the Duke of Burgundy. Glow-worms light up some summer nights. The hill and common, 67 hectares in all, are now a National Nature Reserve.

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Open to all, by a fight

Cheltenham Town Council, now the borough council, bought the hill in 1927, and it opened to the public in 1929; Charlton Kings Common passed to the borough council in 1965. Most of it is registered common land, and walkers may roam the whole area as well as the public paths and the Cotswold Way. That right was fought for: after the owner, Henry Dale, fenced part of the hill in 1899, crowds tore down the fences in 1902 and razed the quarry foreman's cottage, and in 1906 the Riot Act was read and eight of the crowd were jailed.

What walkers report

Walkers on AllTrails reported the descent slippery and tricky when wet, even in proper boots, in September and October 2026, and AllTrails notes that parts of the walk get muddy after rain. The hill is shared with mountain bikers; the council gives cyclists permissive access to most areas, and the steep downhill trails are in the woods above Daisy Bank Road. Belted Galloway cattle graze the common in autumn and winter, wearing Nofence GPS collars that keep them to set areas; notices on site have a QR code showing where they are.

Parking, dogs and food

Park free at the Daisy Bank or Bridge car park on Daisy Bank Road, walkers report, where the walk starts. There are two more car parks higher up off Hartley Lane, at Salterley Quarry and Brownstones Quarry, and Cheltenham Spa station and the 444 coach from London, in our guide to the Cotswolds without a car, put the hill within reach without one.

Dogs are welcome on the hill, but the Friends of Leckhampton Hill ask for them to be on a short lead, not a long or extending one, near the Belted Galloway cattle that graze the common in autumn and winter; our guide tothe Cotswolds with a dog has more on livestock. None of the walk's sources names a pub or café on the route, so bring water and something to eat, and look for food in Cheltenham below. The nearest places to eat are the Wheatsheaf on Old Bath Road in Leckhampton, below the hill, and StarBistro at National Star in Ullenwood, open on weekdays.

More walks on the escarpment

The Cotswold Way runs along this scarp, so longer walks join up easily. Seven Springs and Leckhampton Hill reaches the hill along the Cotswold Way, which since July 2026 also carries a diversion around the A417 works near Birdlip. The National Landscape's mobility-scooter route on Leckhampton Hill is in our guide to the accessible Cotswolds. Further along the escarpment, Cleeve Common and Cleeve Cloud climbs to the highest ground in the Cotswolds, and Painswick Beacon has Iron Age ramparts of its own.