Des Blenkinsopp, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Filkins and Broughton Poggs
Two villages either side of the Broadwell Brook, just off the A361 between Burford and Lechlade, known for their upright stone-slab fences, a small village museum and a pub with rooms. The woollen mill closed to visitors in 2026.
- Nearest station
- Charlbury or Swindon, each about 15 miles, then a taxi
- Parking
- No car park; the Five Alls has one for customers, and the lanes are narrow. Use GL7 3JQ, the village hall postcode, for sat nav
- Best time
- The National Garden Scheme open gardens day in May; any dry day for the lanes
- When it's busy
- Rarely busy; book the Five Alls for Sunday lunch
- Toilets
- None public; the Five Alls for customers
- Dogs
- Welcome at the Five Alls (rooms on request, charge possible); allowed at the Cotswold Wildlife Park, 4 miles away, but not indoors, in its restaurant or shop, or where animals roam free
About Filkins and Broughton Poggs
Filkins and Broughton Poggs are two villages that grew into one across the Broadwell Brook, just off the A361 between Burford and Lechlade, bypassed in the 1960s and quiet ever since. What marks them out is the stone: the gardens are fenced with slabs of Forest Marble set on end like gravestones, which the district council calls distinctive to the area, and the village has its own quarrying history to explain it.
What to see
The slab fences come first. The district council's conservation appraisal calls them stone planks or slats: slices of Forest Marble about a metre high, set upright in a row to divide a garden from the lane, and mostly of the nineteenth century. The Victoria County History names the quarries, Longround and Horsebottom, just north-west of the village. Several runs are listed in their own right, on Chapel Lane, Hazel's Lane and Rouses Lane, and the same stone roofed the cottages. The county history also records a pagan Saxon cemetery of about fifteen graves dug up on the north edge of the village in 1855.
The Swinford Museum is a pair of early eighteenth and nineteenth-century cottages on the main street with the village lock-up attached to one end and slab fencing in front. George Swinford, the village master mason (1887 to 1987), started it in 1931 with Sir Stafford Cripps, who lived at Goodfellows; Herbert Morrison, then minister of transport, opened it. It holds Cotswold village artefacts. It is not open every day and we could not confirm its opening days when we checked in October 2026, so ring 01367 860504, the number on its Charity Commission record, before you plan around it.
Cotswold Woollen Weavers, in an eighteenth-century barn at Cross Tree Yard, was the reason most visitors came between 1982 and 2026. Its website said in October 2026 that after 44 years it has closed to the public, and that its remaining cloth is sold by appointment only. Do not plan a day around it.
There are two churches, both St Peter's. Filkins's stands by the main street, built in 1855 to 1857 by G. E. Street in a tall French Gothic with a round-ended chancel; Filkins had no church of its own before it, and the east window glass of 1868 is by Clayton and Bell. Broughton Poggs's is the older and the better: a small early twelfth-century church, listed Grade II*, reached along a leafy track from the middle of the hamlet, with a squat tower of about 1200 that is oblong rather than square, Norman doorways with carved tympana, a scratch sundial on the south doorway and an early tub-shaped font.
An afternoon here
An hour is enough for the villages, two with the museum open. Start at the Five Alls, walk up the main street past Street's church to the museum and the lock-up, then turn into the lanes behind, where the slab fences are. Cross the brook into Broughton Poggs, follow the track from the middle of the hamlet to the Norman church, and come back for lunch. The Cotswold Wildlife Park is 4 miles (6km) up the road towards Burford. It opens every day except Christmas Day, but closes on weekdays from 4 January to 4 February 2027.
Walks
We have no walk of our own from Filkins yet. In Broughton Poggs a maze of narrow walled footways, which the conservation appraisal calls tuers, meets at a leafy grove near the church, and these lanes are the walk here. For something longer, the nearest routes we have checked are Lechlade, Buscot and the Thames, about 4 miles south, and Burford and the Windrush valley, 6 miles north.
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Food and drink
The Five Alls in Lower Filkins was one of the village's three licensed houses by the mid eighteenth century and is the last pub left; the Lamb became housing in 2002. It is under new management, and its website gives opening from 8am to 11pm Monday to Saturday and to 10.30pm on Sunday, breakfast from 8am to 10am every day, lunch from midday to 2.30pm Wednesday to Saturday, Sunday lunch from midday to 6pm, and dinner from 5.30pm to 9.30pm Monday to Saturday. It has nine en-suite rooms, four doubles and kings above the bar and five cottage rooms with super-king beds at the back of the garden, with check-in from 3pm, check-out by 11am and secure parking for guests, and welcomes dogs. The village shop, run by volunteers, opens in summer from 10am to 11am and 3pm to 5pm on most days, subject to volunteers.
When to come
Filkins is never crowded. The one day to aim for is the National Garden Scheme opening, held on a Sunday in May (17 May in 2026), when gardens in both villages open, with teas in the village hall; the 2027 date is to be confirmed. Otherwise choose any dry day for the lanes; the brook has flooded Broughton Poggs twice in living memory, in 1930 and 2007, and the low lanes are wet after rain.
Last verified 1 November 2026 by our editors
Part of
The Oxfordshire Cotswolds
The Windrush and Evenlode valleys on the Oxfordshire side of the hills: Burford's High Street, Kingham on the railway, Witney's blankets and Woodstock at Blenheim's gates.
Things to do in Filkins and Broughton Poggs
Wildlife and nature · Burford
Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens
A wildlife park and gardens near Burford with animals from around the world, a narrow-gauge railway, free parking and room for dogs on leads in most of it.
Where to stay in Filkins and Broughton Poggs
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The Hideaway
Glamping · Filkins and Broughton Poggs
A shepherd's hut for two in an enclosed garden in Filkins, with a wood-fired hot tub, a log burner and room for one dog, a walk from the Five Alls.
Dog-friendly · Hot tubs
Verified Oct 2026
Where to eat and drink in Filkins and Broughton Poggs
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The Five Alls, Filkins
Pubs · Filkins and Broughton Poggs
A restored eighteenth-century stone coaching inn in Filkins, near Lechlade, with two dining rooms, a country bar serving Brakspear ales, seasonal menus from local suppliers, nine bedrooms and dogs welcome.
Dog-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
Walks in and around Filkins and Broughton Poggs
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Eastleach and the River Leach
Walk · Starts in Cirencester and the Coln Valley · 1 hr, 45 mins · Circular · Dog-friendly
A 4.4-mile (7.1km) circular walk from Eastleach, an hour and a half to two hours with about 70m of climbing and plenty of mud: past two Norman churches and over the Leach, up the quiet valley to the Roman Akeman Street, and back down the other side to the Victoria Inn.
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Lechlade and St John's Lock
Walk · Starts in Lechlade-on-Thames · 45 mins · Circular · Dog-friendly
A flat 3-mile (4.8km) circular walk from Lechlade's Market Place, easy and about an hour: out to the Round House where the Coln and the old canal meet the Thames, back along the meadows past Ha'penny Bridge to St John's Lock and the Trout Inn, home by Shelley's Walk.
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Lechlade, Buscot and the Thames
Walk · Starts in Lechlade-on-Thames · Circular
A level 4.5-mile (7.2km) circular walk from Halfpenny Bridge, Lechlade, with three stiles and no time given: by the Thames Path meadows to Inglesham church, over to Buscot by lanes and fields, across Buscot Weir and Lock, and back by St John's Lock and the Trout Inn.
Sights in and around Filkins and Broughton Poggs
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St Michael and St Martin, Eastleach Martin
Sight · Church · Cirencester and the Coln Valley
The Norman church of Eastleach Martin, on the east bank of the River Leach facing St Andrew's across the water. Granted to Great Malvern Priory about 1120, it keeps a fine Decorated transept window and medieval pews. Grade I; Churches Conservation Trust; open daily.
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St Andrew's Church, Eastleach Turville
Sight · Church · Cirencester and the Coln Valley
St Andrew's is Eastleach Turville's parish church, by the River Leach and facing its twin across the water. Grade I, it has a carved Norman Christ in Majesty over the south door, a medieval saddleback tower and a lectern shaft from Tewkesbury Abbey.
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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 Filkins and Broughton Poggs
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Why Cotswold stone is golden
Story · History · 9 minute read
The Jurassic limestone that built the Cotswolds, the iron that colours it honey in the north and grey in the south, the quarries at Taynton, Barrington, Guiting and Painswick, the stone slate roofs and the dry-stone walls, and where to see each.
Getting to Filkins and Broughton Poggs
- By car
- Just off the A361, about 6 miles south of Burford and 4 miles north of Lechlade; use GL7 3JQ for sat nav. No car park: park with care in the lanes, or at the Five Alls as a customer.
- By train
- Charlbury and Swindon are each about 15 miles away; take a taxi from either, or the 64 bus from Swindon.
- By bus
- Thames Travel's 64 runs between Witney, Carterton, Filkins, Lechlade, Highworth and Swindon four times a day each way, Monday to Saturday, with no Sunday bus.
Access
Broughton Poggs church is reached along a leafy track from the middle of the hamlet; the Swinford Museum is in a pair of small cottages
| Lechlade | 3.7 mi |
|---|---|
| Cotswold Wildlife Park | 3.7 mi |
| Kelmscott | 6.2 mi |
| Burford | 6.2 mi |
| Bampton | 6.2 mi |
| Witney | 10.6 mi |
Places near Filkins and Broughton Poggs
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BurfordA wool and coaching town whose High Street runs downhill to a medieval bridge over the Windrush, with a Grade I church where the Levellers were held in 1649.
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Lechlade-on-ThamesThe 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.
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KelmscottA hamlet of about a hundred people on the upper Thames, 3 miles east of Lechlade, where William Morris rented the manor from 1871 until he died and where he is buried: the manor, his grave, a 1690 pub and the Thames Path.
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WitneyThe blanket town on the Windrush, just outside the National Landscape, with a Butter Cross, a long Church Green and Cogges manor farm, and free parking.