Woodchester Park and the boathouse

The Woodchester Park and boathouse walk is a 3.75-mile (6km) circular walk without stiles from the National Trust car park near Nympsfield, about 3 miles west of Nailsworth. It takes about two hours, with a steady down-and-up of 209m. It passes the unfinished Woodchester Mansion, whose café opens on its open days, and a boathouse of about 1820.

It is one of the Cotswolds National Landscape's Miles Without Stiles routes, last checked by its authors in January 2022. It goes down the valley past the mansion, along a chain of ponds to Middle Pond, back by the boathouse and up through the woods. There are some steps, and the route page asks for moderate fitness, with steep slopes in places.

Woodchester Mansion

Woodchester Mansion is a Grade I Victorian Gothic house that was never finished, which is why it is worth seeing: you can look at how a house of its time was built. William Leigh, a wealthy convert to Roman Catholicism, bought the estate in 1845 for £170,000. Pugin, asked to survey the old house, condemned it, and work on a new one began in the mid-1850s; the earliest surviving drawings are dated 1857 and the clock tower 1858.

The architect who took it over was Benjamin Bucknall, a young local man born in 1833, who blended the ideas of the French architect Viollet-le-Duc with Cotswold building in limestone. The roof of the south front was finished by 1866, but in 1873 and 1874 Leigh's son was advised that finishing the house would cost more than building a new one, and it was left as it stands. The house is run by the Woodchester Mansion Trust, and rare horseshoe bats roost in it.

In 2026 the mansion opened from 11am to 5pm on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays from Good Friday until Sunday 1 November, with last admission at 4pm, and its café, Henry's, kept the same hours. The leaflet puts the toilets with the café, open on those days. The 2027 open days had not been published when we checked in October 2026. Our guide to Cotswold houses and castles has it among the region's great houses.

The ponds and the boathouse

The middle of the walk follows the valley floor along a chain of ponds, round Middle Pond and back by the boathouse on Old Pond. The leaflet's map names them Brick Kiln Pond, Old Pond and Middle Pond, with Kennel Pond and Parkmill Pond further down. The walk takes in three of them, crossing the dam at the end of Middle Pond and coming back along its far side, with pink arrows marking parts of the way.

The boathouse sits on the dam of Old Pond. It is listed Grade II and dates from about 1820, probably by John Adey Repton for the first Earl Ducie: a two-storey building of rubble limestone and red brick, with a boat dock on the lower level, a gabled porch on rustic timber posts and a timber oriel over the boat opening.

Back through the woods

The way back climbs slowly through the wood above the valley rather than retracing the track. It meanders before dropping towards the mansion, giving close views of its rooftops, then rejoins the outward track for the last stretch up to the car park, which is the steady climb the leaflet warns of.

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Parking and getting there

The walk starts from the National Trust car park for Woodchester Park, signed off the B4066 between Dursley and Stroud, at grid reference SO 799014. This is the National Trust's Buckholt car park, off the B4066 near Coaley Peak; non-members pay £4 for the day, by card, cash or the JustPark app, according to the National Trust's Woodchester Park page in October 2026 (the machine gives no change), and National Trust members park free. On the mansion's open days a free minibus leaves the foot of the car park steps every hour on the hour from 11am, when volunteers are available, or you can walk the three-quarters of a mile down the unmade track, which the mansion warns can be muddy and slippery in poor weather. The minibus does not run from the Trust's other car park at Tinkley Gate. The mansion also warns that its postcode can take a satnav to the wrong end of the valley, and there is no phone signal at the mansion.

Food, dogs and paths

The only place to eat on the walk itself is the mansion's café, on open days only, and dogs on leads are allowed in just one of its rooms. Off the route, there is a café with accessible toilets by the National Trust's Welcome Centre at the Tinkley Gate car park. The leaflet names the Rose and Crown in Nympsfield, but it has been closed since February 2023; a community group, Nympsfield Community Pub, bought it in January 2026 and is renovating it, and CAMRA's listing gave September 2027 as the estimated reopening when we checked in October 2026.

Dogs are welcome, but the National Trust's Woodchester Park page asks for them to be kept on a lead at all times, and its dog page asks for a short lead on the tracks through fields of grazing sheep and cattle. The paths are mostly estate tracks, with some unsurfaced paths through reclaimed grassland and woodland, gates, footbridges and steps: down from the car park, up to the dam of Old Pond and up from the pond path to the track. Countryside Mobility lends two Tramper all-terrain scooters at Woodchester Park from the Welcome Centre by the Tinkley Gate car park, seven days a week, free with donations welcome, and asks you to book ahead, as our guide to the accessible Cotswolds explains.

More near Woodchester

The nearest walks to this one are on the commons above Stroud: the 2-mile stroll round Rodborough Common and the walk on Minchinhampton Common and Amberley, which passes the Amberley Inn, with 13 rooms over the Woodchester valley. To the south, the walk from Kingscote by Ozleworth and Lasborough is a longer day. For somewhere to stay, Woodchester Valley Vineyard has stays about a mile from the route, and our places to stay in Nailsworth has more; our guide to Stroud and the Five Valleys covers the country round about.