Rodborough Common and the fort

The Rodborough Common walk is a 2-mile (3.4km) circular walk from a free car park on the top of Rodborough Common, the open limestone grassland above Stroud. It is nearly level and takes about 45 minutes, past the battlemented folly of Rodborough Fort and the Bear of Rodborough hotel, with an ice-cream stop near the end.

It is an easy walk on grass paths, the gentlest on our list for the Five Valleys. Allow an hour if you stop for the views and an ice cream.

Rodborough Fort

The fort is the walk's one building of note. It began as a folly built for a Captain Hawker in 1761 and was enlarged into a house in 1870 for Alexander Holcombe, with a four-storey tower, battlements, a stair turret and two sets of curtain walls. It was extensively restored in the middle of the twentieth century, when the north-east side was largely rebuilt in artificial stone. Its listing calls it an important landscape feature, standing on a lofty eminence above Stroud.

It is a private house, so you see it from the common. The walk passes close by and turns away down the western edge.

The common and its cattle

Rodborough Common belongs to the National Trust and runs south into Minchinhampton Common. The Trust has owned Rodborough Common since 1937. Both commons are Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and Rodborough is also a Special Area of Conservation for its limestone grassland. Commoners’ cattle graze the commons from about May to October and wander onto the roads that cross them. Several cows have been hit and killed by cars on the commons in 2026, the latest near the Bear, and Minchinhampton parish council has renewed calls for action. Drive slowly up here, and ring the commons’ hayward on 07973 326772 if you see cattle in trouble.

Walkers report cattle, donkeys and even shire horses wandering the common from about mid-May into the autumn, plenty of cow pats underfoot and a great many dog walkers. Keep dogs on a lead or close by when the animals are out, and give them room. Our guide to the Cotswolds with a dog has more on walking among livestock.

Milestone Cottage and the Bear

On the way back the path passes Milestone Cottage, built in 1913 by the architect Thomas Falconer in the Cotswold Arts and Crafts manner, of local limestone with stone mullions and leaded windows. Its listing records ironwork by Alfred Bucknell, down to the door latches and window catches. It takes its name from the milestone across the road, which gives the distances to Stroud and Cirencester.

The Bear of Rodborough, a hotel on the common with dogs welcome, is about 120m from the route at its southern end, and Winstones ice-cream parlour on the byway past it, where the Winstone family has made ice cream since 1925, is the stop walkers mention most. It opens every day, 10am to 5pm in winter, and sells an ice cream for dogs. Below the western edge at Rooksmoor, about 600m from the route, the Old Fleece is a pub that serves food on Sundays from noon to 7.45pm; it has self-catering apartments behind it. At the top of Rodborough Hill, about 500m from the route, the Prince Albert is a pub and music venue where dogs are welcome in the day (on a short lead if on one); it is closed on Tuesdays and opens in the afternoon the rest of the week.

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What walkers report

The common is criss-crossed by paths, so have the line on your phone. Walkers report benches along the way and a small pond the dogs enjoy, and say it can be muddy after rain and busy on fine weekends.

Walking it anticlockwise, as the line runs, puts the ice cream about three quarters of the way round.

Parking and staying nearby

Park free beside the road across the common, walkers report: there are several car parks along it, and two near the start with plenty of space. For a night nearby, our pick of places to stay in Stroud covers the town below the common.

Longer walks from the common

For a longer day, the walk from Stroud by Capel's Mill climbs up from the canal to the fort and back, and Minchinhampton Common and Amberley crosses the larger common to the south. Our guide to Minchinhampton covers the town at the far end of the commons. East over the Golden Valley, the Toadsmoor valley walk from Eastcombe is the opposite of this one: steep, wooded and quiet.