Things to do · Minchinhampton
Cotswold Gliding Club
One of the UK's larger gliding clubs, at Aston Down airfield between Stroud and Cirencester, offering air experience flights, motorglider flights and courses.
The way to see the Cotswold edge from above: a flight with an instructor from £95, and on a clear day you look over the Severn. Book a date with the office, and allow a morning.
- Good: Experience flights from £95 with a qualified instructor (2026)
- Good: Vouchers valid 12 months
- Good: Visitors welcome to watch from the airfield
- Worth knowing: Minimum age 14; under-16s with an adult; parental consent at 16 and 17
- Worth knowing: Enter by the east gate: sat nav GL6 8HX
- Worth knowing: Office not staffed on Thursday or Friday
About
Cotswold Gliding Club flies from Aston Down, an airfield on the high ground between Stroud and Cirencester, near Minchinhampton. With nearly 150 members it is one of the larger gliding clubs in the UK, and it takes visitors up in two-seat gliders with a qualified instructor.
Experience flights come in three sizes for 2026: Bronze, about 20 minutes after an aerotow to about 600m, for £95; Silver, about 30 minutes from about 900m, for £125; and Gold, about 45 minutes and up to a mile high, for £195. You can take the controls or just look. A motorglider gives a longer tour of the Cotswolds, from £120 for 30 minutes. From the air you see the River Severn to the west and, on a good day, the Severn bridges and Wales.
Flights are booked for a date with the office, which is staffed from 9am to 2pm every day except Thursday and Friday. The minimum age is 14; under-16s must come with an adult, and 16 and 17 year olds need a parental consent form. Vouchers last 12 months. If the first flight hooks you, a one-day introductory course costs £275 and a five-day course £750.
Visitors are welcome to watch. Enter by the east gate, next to Jolly Nice farm shop on the A419, where you press the call button at the airfield gates and ask security to let you in for the gliding club. Keep to the perimeter road and look for the red and white chequered launch trailer. It is a working airfield: watch for aircraft.
Opening hours and season
Flights by booked date. The office is staffed 9am to 2pm every day except Thursday and Friday.
Facilities
- ParkingBy the launch point or control tower; most motor policies do not cover cars airside
- AirfieldKeep to the perimeter road and off the grass
The details
- Time to allow
- A morning or afternoon
- Features
- Views · Parking
- History
- Nearly 150 members
- Parking
- East gate off the A419 by Jolly Nice farm shop (sat nav GL6 8HX). Press the call button at the gates and say you are visiting the gliding club, then take the perimeter road to the launch point.
Photos
Above the clouds on a trial lesson 
A motor glider on the airfield 
Soaring over the fields 
The grid on a competition day
Location
Places to stay nearby
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Westley Farm
Glamping · Chalford
A 70-acre hill farm at the head of the Golden Valley above Chalford, with six off-grid yurts and cabins in its ancient woodland and three stone cottages, all dog-friendly.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly · Walker-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Burnt Ash Farm
Glamping · Minchinhampton
A small family-run stables a mile east of Minchinhampton with shepherd huts in an orchard and a small campsite for five caravans or motorhomes.
Family-friendly · Walker-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
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The Crown Inn, Frampton Mansell
Pubs · Sapperton and Frampton Mansell
An old village inn at Frampton Mansell, by its own account a seventeenth-century cider house, with log fires, local ales, a big garden and views over the Golden Valley, open every day.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
Nearby walks, places and things to do
- Westley Farm 0.9 km away
- Burnt Ash Farm 1.7 km away
- Jolly Nice 1.7 km away
- The Crown Inn, Frampton Mansell 1.7 km away
Sights nearby
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The Long Stone, Minchinhampton
Sight · Hill fort or barrow · Minchinhampton
The Long Stone is a prehistoric standing stone in farmland south-east of Minchinhampton: a slab of oolite 2.1m high, pierced by holes that give it its local name, the Holey Stone. Tradition says children were passed through them as a cure for rickets. A scheduled monument.
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Toadsmoor Mill
Sight · Historic building · Stroud and the Five Valleys
Toadsmoor Mill is an early nineteenth-century mill of dressed limestone in the wooded Toadsmoor valley east of Stroud, once a cloth mill known as Upper Toadsmoor Mill, its upper door reached by a timber bridge from the bank. Grade II; now partly a house, seen from the footpath.
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Market House, Minchinhampton
Sight · Historic building · Minchinhampton
Minchinhampton's Market House was built in 1698 by the lord of the manor, Philip Sheppard, for the wool and yarn trade: an open arcade on stone piers with a hall above. Listed Grade II*, it still holds a country market on Wednesday mornings.
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Holy Trinity Church, Minchinhampton
Sight · Church · Minchinhampton
Holy Trinity is Minchinhampton's Grade I parish church, known for its fourteenth-century tower whose spire was cut short in 1563 and crowned with a stone coronet, a south transept lit by a great rose window, and the grave of the astronomer James Bradley.