The Catherine Wheel, Marshfield

The Catherine Wheel is the old coaching inn on the High Street in Marshfield, about 8 miles north of Bath by road on the southern edge of the Cotswolds. Historic England lists it at Grade II* as a burgess's house of about 1680 to 1690, with a carved shell hood over the door, and calls it an excellent local example of provincial baroque. The pub's own history adds that the front was built onto a much older house, that it was a coaching inn by about 1740, and that it was called the Star until the 1780s.

It is a village pub with real ales, rooms and a function and private dining room. The chefs cook fresh, plain dishes from local produce: lunch, an evening menu, a Sunday roast from noon to 7pm, a takeaway menu, and a festive menu served from 1 December 2026 to 3 January 2027, except on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, which needs a deposit to book. Dogs are welcome in the pub. Tables are booked online or by phone.

Upstairs are three en-suite bed and breakfast rooms, each with a shower room, TV and tea and coffee: two doubles, one of which can be a twin, and a triple with a double and a single bed. Well-behaved dogs can stay for a small extra charge, stays of three nights or more get 10% off, and the pub offers Cotswold Way walkers a lift back to the trail at Cold Ashton after breakfast for a contribution to fuel. For a stay within the next 24 hours, ring rather than book online.

The pub's own website gives two sets of hours. Its footer has the pub open from 5pm on Mondays and from noon to 11pm the rest of the week, with lunch from Tuesday to Saturday, evening food from 6.30pm to 8.30pm, or 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and the Sunday roast; its home page says noon every day. Ring before a Monday lunch.

The Pipley Bottom Boys play on the last Thursday of the month. On Boxing Day the Marshfield Mummers perform their plays up the High Street and finish outside the pub (at about 11.45am in 2025; the times for Saturday 26 December 2026 are to be confirmed); it opens for drinks and mince pies, with no food. Marshfield's long High Street, its almshouses and its datestones are the walk before lunch, and the Cotswold Way passes a few miles west at Cold Ashton.