11 places · every place verified by us
Stroud's valleys trade on their mills, gardens and makers: a Rococo garden at Painswick, an unfinished Victorian mansion at Woodchester, a free museum in Stroud and a canal you can travel by boat to an organic brewery. It suits people who like to walk between things, and much of it is cheap or free.
11 places
Tours and experiences · Stroud
Volunteer-crewed trips on the restored Thames and Severn Canal from Wallbridge in Stroud, run by the Cotswold Canals Trust, including a lunch cruise to Stroud Brewery.
Family-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
Sport and activity · Minchinhampton
One of the UK's larger gliding clubs, at Aston Down airfield between Stroud and Cirencester, offering air experience flights, motorglider flights and courses.
Verified Oct 2026
Museums and galleries · Nailsworth
The Stroudwater Textile Trust's working mill museum near Nailsworth, where an 1855 waterwheel drives cloth-finishing machinery. Closed until spring 2027; normally open on set afternoons from April to September.
Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
Historic houses and heritage · Nailsworth
The Stroudwater Textile Trust's weaving shed on the Old Bristol Road at Nailsworth, where guides work hand-looms and a power loom and you can try weaving.
Family-friendly · Rainy days
Verified Nov 2026
Parks and gardens · Bisley
The seventeenth-century garden of Miserden Park, between Stroud and Cirencester, with some of the longest mixed borders in private hands, a yew walk and a loggia by Lutyens. Closed for winter until April 2027.
Verified Oct 2026
Museums and galleries · Stroud
Stroud's free museum in a seventeenth-century house in Stratford Park, with a walled garden and a café, closed on Mondays and for a few weeks in winter.
Rainy days · Car-free · Family-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
Parks and gardens · Painswick
An eighteenth-century pleasure garden restored from a painting of 1748, with snowdrops in late winter, a café and dogs welcome on short leads.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly · Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
Historic houses and heritage · Painswick
The home of a Benedictine community since 1928 on the wooded hillside at Cranham, between Painswick and Gloucester, with a monastery shop and café open daily, a chapel open for quiet prayer and footpaths across the estate.
Verified Oct 2026
Breweries and distilleries · Stroud
An organic brewery and taproom beside the Thames and Severn Canal at Thrupp, Stroud, founded in 2006, with wood-fired pizza, monthly brewery tours and tasting sessions.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
Historic houses and heritage · Minchinhampton
An unfinished Grade I house near Nympsfield, reached by minibus or a walk down a track, open Friday to Sunday from April to early November.
Family-friendly · Walker-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
Tours and experiences · Nailsworth
A vineyard and winery in the Woodchester valley near Stroud and Nailsworth, with booked tours and tastings and a cellar door shop on the A46 open seven days a week.
Verified Nov 2026
Painswick Rococo Garden is a pleasure garden of the 1740s restored from a painting of 1748, steep in places, with a maze for children and dogs welcome on short leads, in the café and shop too. Its snowdrop season, from mid-January, needs booking. On the hillside at Cranham, Prinknash Abbey is a working Benedictine monastery whose café and shop open every day from 10am to 4pm, with visitors welcome on the estate footpaths.
Miserden Garden, between Stroud and Cirencester, has borders among the longest in private ownership, but it is closed for the winter until April.
In Stroud itself, Museum in the Park is free, in Stratford Park's late seventeenth-century mansion, with the lido and a miniature railway in the same park. The restored Thames and Severn Canal runs through the valley, and the Cotswold Canals Trust runs trips from Wallbridge Lock through working locks on set dates, including a lunch cruise to Stroud Brewery, an organic brewery and taproom on the towpath at Thrupp with wood-fired pizza.
Near Nailsworth, Dunkirk Mill's 1855 waterwheel drives the machines that finished the valleys' cloth. It reopens in the spring.
Woodchester Mansion, a Grade I house left unfinished in a valley near Nympsfield, opens from Friday to Sunday between April and 1 November, with guided tours included in the ticket when volunteers are available, and bats watched on camera. Nearby, Woodchester Valley Vineyard runs booked tours and tastings for over-18s, and its cellar door shop on the A46 needs no booking. For the view from above, the Cotswold Gliding Club at Aston Down flies visitors with an instructor from £95 (2026).
Museum in the Park is free, and Prinknash Abbey says entrance to its estate is free. An adult pays about £12 at the Rococo Garden (£12.20 in its own FAQ) and £13 at Woodchester Mansion (2026). The Rococo Garden has a free car park, and Museum in the Park's main car park is free, about 260m away. Woodchester's car park charges non-members £4, cash only, and has no phone signal.
Dogs are welcome at the Rococo Garden, in Stroud Brewery's taproom and in Woodchester's grounds, but not on the canal boats. Stroud has direct trains from London Paddington, and an hourly bus runs to the Rococo Garden from Stroud and Cheltenham, Monday to Saturday. For lunch, see places to eat in the Five Valleys, and for the rest of the region, things to do in the Cotswolds.
The valleys keep their old customs: Randwick Wap in May, Bisley Well Dressing on Ascension Day, the Painswick Clipping Ceremony in September and Stroud Wassail in late winter. For two days here, a Five Valleys weekend is based in Painswick, and five days in the Cotswolds ends with two nights there.
In the town itself, see places to eat in Stroud.
The Rococo Garden for its 1740s design and dogs welcome, Prinknash for a quiet hour, Museum in the Park for a free morning, the canal trips and Stroud Brewery for a day on the water, Woodchester's mansion and vineyard, and the gliding club for the edge from above.
All places
Parks and gardens · Painswick
An eighteenth-century pleasure garden restored from a painting of 1748, with snowdrops in late winter, a café and dogs welcome on short leads.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly · Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
Historic houses and heritage · Painswick
The home of a Benedictine community since 1928 on the wooded hillside at Cranham, between Painswick and Gloucester, with a monastery shop and café open daily, a chapel open for quiet prayer and footpaths across the estate.
Verified Oct 2026
Museums and galleries · Stroud
Stroud's free museum in a seventeenth-century house in Stratford Park, with a walled garden and a café, closed on Mondays and for a few weeks in winter.
Rainy days · Car-free · Family-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
Tours and experiences · Stroud
Volunteer-crewed trips on the restored Thames and Severn Canal from Wallbridge in Stroud, run by the Cotswold Canals Trust, including a lunch cruise to Stroud Brewery.
Family-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
Breweries and distilleries · Stroud
An organic brewery and taproom beside the Thames and Severn Canal at Thrupp, Stroud, founded in 2006, with wood-fired pizza, monthly brewery tours and tasting sessions.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
Historic houses and heritage · Minchinhampton
An unfinished Grade I house near Nympsfield, reached by minibus or a walk down a track, open Friday to Sunday from April to early November.
Family-friendly · Walker-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
Tours and experiences · Nailsworth
A vineyard and winery in the Woodchester valley near Stroud and Nailsworth, with booked tours and tastings and a cellar door shop on the A46 open seven days a week.
Verified Nov 2026
Sport and activity · Minchinhampton
One of the UK's larger gliding clubs, at Aston Down airfield between Stroud and Cirencester, offering air experience flights, motorglider flights and courses.
Verified Oct 2026
Down to Woodchester's lakes and boathouse, up Painswick Beacon, over Rodborough Common, and along the Laurie Lee Wildlife Way.
All walks starting here
Walk · Starts in Nailsworth · 2 hrs · Circular
A 3.75-mile (6km) circular walk without stiles from the National Trust car park at Woodchester Park, moderate and about two hours: down past the unfinished Victorian mansion, along the valley to Middle Pond, back by the boathouse on Old Pond and steadily up through the woods.
Walk · Starts in Painswick · 2 hrs, 45 mins · Circular · Dog-friendly
A 5-mile (8.2km) circular walk from Painswick, moderate and two and a half to three hours, with 250m of climbing: out by Butt Green and the Holcombe farms, over the B4073 and up to the Iron Age ramparts on Painswick Beacon, then down past the golf course and the Rococo Garden.
Walk · Starts in Stroud and the Five Valleys · 45 mins · Circular · Dog-friendly
A 2-mile (3.4km) circular walk on Rodborough Common above Stroud, easy, nearly level and about 45 minutes: up to the battlemented folly of Rodborough Fort, down the open western edge, and back past the Bear and an ice-cream stop. Grassy, and grazed by cattle.
Walk · Starts in Painswick · 2 hrs, 45 mins · Circular
A 5-mile (8.4km) circular walk from Bulls Cross round the Slad valley, moderate with steep climbs and three to five hours with stops: Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust's loop by Longridge Wood, Snows Farm, Catswood and Swift's Hill, with ten posts carrying Laurie Lee's poems.
Open days, canal trips and what is on in the valleys and across the Cotswolds, in your inbox about once a month.
Museum in the Park is free and step-free, and the lido and a miniature railway are in the same park. The Rococo Garden at Painswick has a maze and a play area, and children under 16 can ride the Cotswold Canals Trust's boats with an adult. Stroud Brewery welcomes children in its taproom, with pizza, beside the towpath.
Museum in the Park in Stroud is free, with a lift and a refreshment area, and closes only on Mondays and for a few weeks around Christmas. Woodchester Mansion, until 1 November, is a building to explore indoors, with guided tours at 11.45am and 2.30pm. Prinknash Abbey's café opens every day and its chapel is open for quiet prayer, and Stroud Brewery's kitchen is open from 10am to 9pm every day, with pizzas from noon Thursday to Sunday and from 5pm Monday to Wednesday.
Museum in the Park in Stroud is free, in a late seventeenth-century mansion with a walled garden, and Prinknash Abbey at Cranham welcomes visitors on its estate footpaths and says entrance to the estate is free. The commons cost nothing either: walk over Rodborough Common to the fort, or up Painswick Beacon for the view over the Severn.
Museum in the Park and Prinknash Abbey stay open, apart from the museum's break from late December to late January. The Rococo Garden opens for dog weekends in November and again from mid-January for the snowdrops. Woodchester Mansion closes after 1 November, and Miserden Garden and Dunkirk Mill reopen in the spring.
The steep valleys that meet at Stroud: old cloth-mill country, with Painswick's churchyard of yews, Nailsworth's mills and the commons above Minchinhampton.
What is on, what is new and what is in season in Cotswolds Info, in your inbox about once a month.