Haresfield Beacon and Standish Wood

The Haresfield Beacon walk is a 4.5-mile (7.2km) circular walk from the National Trust's Shortwood car park above Stroud, through Standish Wood and back up to the hillfort on the Beacon. It is moderate, with about 210m of climbing and stiles, and takes two to two and a half hours. A pub is just off the route.

It starts and ends on the Cotswold Way, which runs through the estate, and spends its middle hour in the fields below the escarpment.

Standish Wood and the cross dyke

The walk begins in the woods. The Trust says Shortwood has veteran beech trees more than 200 years old, and Standish Wood below it is known for bluebells and spring flowers. Walkers in April 2026 found carpets of bluebells and wild garlic. At the foot of the wood the route follows Robbers Road, an old bridleway, past the earthwork of a cross dyke, one of the estate's prehistoric monuments.

The Trust counts long and round barrows, a hillfort and a cross dyke on the estate, monuments it describes as more than 3,000 years old. It manages the trees and keeps the ragwort down on the grassland, and in spring Standish Wood is full of bluebells.

Haresfield Beacon

The climb back up the escarpment ends at the hillfort, which the Trust describes as standing on an exposed and wild promontory. From the top, and from the topograph near the car park, the view runs across the Severn estuary to the Forest of Dean and, on a clear day, the Brecon Beacons. The limestone grassland on the slopes has orchids and butterflies, and buzzards and kestrels hunt over the edge.

This stretch is part of stage 9 of the Cotswold Way, from Painswick to King's Stanley, which comes over Edge Common and on through Standish Woods.

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What walkers report

AllTrails' surface data puts about a third of the route on natural paths and another third on grass. Reviewers mention the stiles more than anything: several double stiles, which one walker in January 2026 struggled to lift a small dog over, and another called them unfriendly to dogs. The fields below the wood hold sheep, so dogs go on leads. The Trust asks for that across the estate anyway. If cattle come close, its advice is to let a dog off the lead and call it back when it is safe. Our guide to the Cotswolds with a dog has more on walking among livestock.

Several walkers found the footpaths in the fields hard to follow and got lost, so carry the map. The last third is a long climb back to the Beacon, with a bench or two on the way. In winter the paths are muddy and slippery. In summer there is little shade on the slopes, so bring water.

Parking and refreshments

The Trust's Shortwood car park (GL6 6PP) is reached by lanes from Whiteshill above Stroud. It costs £1 for an hour, £3 for three hours and £4 for the day, free to members. Walkers report roadside parking nearby as well.

A coffee truck, Off Road Bean, trades at the Shortwood car park and posts its dates on its own website: in October and November 2026 it was there most weekends from 10am to 1pm and on some Fridays from 10am to noon. There is nothing else on the route. The Vine Tree Inn at Randwick, a pub that welcomes dogs, is about 350m from the route as the crow flies, below Standish Wood. When we checked, it opened from noon Tuesday to Sunday, with the bar only from 4pm on Mondays.

For a night nearby, our page on places to stay in Stroud has the inns and hotels in the town below.

More walks nearby

The Cotswold Way runs north from here to Painswick and Painswick Beacon, another hillfort on the edge, and across the valley the walk from Stroud by Capel's Mill climbs to Rodborough Common. For something shorter from the same car park, the Trust's own Randwick Wood circular is about a mile through beech and yew woodland. Our guide to Stroud and the Five Valleys covers the valleys below, and walking in the Cotswolds has the long-distance paths that cross them.