Salford and the Rollright Stones

The Salford and Rollright Stones walk is a 5-mile (8km) circular walk from the green at Salford, north-west of Chipping Norton in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, to the three monuments of the Rollright Stones. It is moderate, with about 120m of climbing and several stiles, and takes about two and a half hours, with no pub on the way.

The stones sit on the ridge at the walk's northern end; Salford and the hamlet of Little Rollright lie in the fields below, and the way back runs through Little Rollright.

Three monuments, two thousand years apart

The Rollright Trust, a charity run by volunteers, owns and manages the stones. It dates the Whispering Knights, the first you reach, to perhaps 3800 BC: a portal dolmen, a burial chamber of four upright stones and a fallen capstone, about 400m east of the circle. The capstone sat on top until the eighteenth century, and the Trust reckons more than 60 people may have been needed to move the stones.

The King's Men circle was put up around 2500 BC. Seventy-odd weathered stones of local oolitic limestone stand in a ring about 31m across, and the Trust thinks there may once have been about 105, set shoulder to shoulder. It is a Dark Sky Discovery Site, used by local astronomers as a field observatory. Across the lane, the King Stone was most likely raised around 1500 BC as a memorial to a burial ground beside it; its odd shape is mostly the work of nineteenth-century souvenir hunters chipping off pieces, which helped bring the stones into legal protection in the 1880s.

The folklore of a king, his army and his plotting knights turned to stone by a witch is in our story on ley lines and the Rollright Stones, and the stones are among our strange things in the Cotswolds.

Visiting the stones

There is no automatic public right of access to the stones, and the Trust asks for a small fee: £2 for adults and £1 for children aged 7 to 16, paid online, by a QR code on site, at the honesty box by the circle in daylight, or to the warden on duty. Walkers report wardens asking for the same. The site is normally open all year. Do not sit or climb on the stones, which are scheduled monuments covered in old and delicate lichens, and keep dogs on leads, away from the stones and out of the circle. Benches by the King's Men and the Whispering Knights make a picnic stop, but there are no toilets or other facilities at the stones.

The Trust says the road past the stones is often busy with lorries, so cross carefully, and warns of thefts from cars in the two small laybys.

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Little Rollright and Brighthill

On the way up, Brighthill Farmhouse is probably seventeenth century, remodelled in 1782, the year on a datestone that once sat over its door. On the way down, Little Rollright's church of St Philip has a chancel probably of the early thirteenth century and a tower built, or rebuilt, in 1617 for William Blower, whose arms and that date are on a tablet on it. The Old Rectory beside it has a datestone of 1640, and a barn north of the church carries two, one inscribed WB 1616, probably for Blower, and one of 1801.

What walkers report

The Black Horse in Salford closed in September 2025, as walkers also reported that autumn, and was offered for sale at auction in October 2026, so bring food: there is nowhere to eat on the walk. Expect stiles, which several walkers had to lift dogs over (May and August 2026), and sheep rather than cattle in the fields (September 2026). In summer parts are overgrown and buggy (June and July 2026). After a wet winter it is muddy and boggy, with overflowing streams to cross (December 2025, February 2026), and in the shooting season walkers have heard guns nearby and met pheasants. It is quiet midweek, busier at the stones.

Parking and dogs

The route gives no car park: walkers report limited roadside parking in the village, so leave room for residents, and one found the start hard to find because it looks like a private garden (December 2025). Some walkers start at the stones instead, but the Rollright Trust asks people not to park in its two small laybys, which fill quickly, as a base for a longer walk. One walker found the loop better walked the other way round.

Dogs are welcome on the walk but must be on leads at the stones, away from them and out of the circle, as the Rollright Trust asks. Walkers lifted dogs over several stiles and met sheep and pheasants, so keep a lead handy; our guide to the Cotswolds with a dog has the rules near sheep.

Paths and nearby walks

The route follows Salford and Rollright bridleways, field footpaths and, near the stones, the Trust's own permissive paths; the stretch from the King's Men down to Little Rollright is a public footpath. For a shorter visit, the National Landscape lists a half-mile walk at the stones among its easiest routes, in our guide to the accessible Cotswolds. A few miles south-west, Kingham, Daylesford and the Evenlode is a flatter walk of about the same length, from a village with a station and two pubs, and our guide to Kingham has more on it.

A few miles west, Chastleton House is a Jacobean house built on the estate Robert Catesby sold in 1602, as our story on Catesby, Chastleton and the Gunpowder Plot tells. From Kingham station, the car-free loop to Bledington crosses the Evenlode into Gloucestershire to the King's Head.