Slad

What to see

Holy Trinity is the small church built in 1831 to the designs of Charles Baker of Painswick and opened in 1834 as a chapel of ease to Painswick; Benjamin Bucknall reconstructed it in 1869, adding a north aisle and porch. A small stone spirelet sits on the nave gable. Laurie Lee is buried in its churchyard, and the church asks visitors to read both sides of his headstone. The grave lies opposite a memorial window installed by his family and supporters, and inside there is a permanent display on his life. The church is open in daylight hours.

The Woolpack stands across the road. The Victoria County History records that it was built in the 1830s, at about the same time as the church and the school. CAMRA describes it as Laurie Lee's local, where he was a regular and helped save the pub from closure, and the pub itself says he spoke of it with great affection, and keeps a cabinet of his books in its dining room. Up the road is Rose Bank, a cottage with an early eighteenth-century front, listed Grade II; its list entry records Laurie Lee still living there in 1984. It is a private house, so look from the road.

Much of the land around the village is Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust reserve. Swift's Hill, across the valley, is 10 hectares of steep limestone grassland with 13 kinds of orchid, and it appears in the book. Frith Wood is the beech wood on the ridge towards Painswick, recorded as woodland for more than a thousand years. Snows Farm is 21 hectares of old grassland and wood at the head of the valley, where more than 300 kinds of plant have been found. The fourth, Laurie Lee Wood on Knapp Lane at Elcombe, is 3 hectares of ancient woodland that belonged to the Lee family; the Trust bought it in 2013 after a public appeal and keeps it open all year, with dogs on a lead.

A morning here

Park on the road by the Woolpack and start in the churchyard, then go inside for the display and the village guidebook, which is on sale and covers the walks. From the church, the narrow lane drops into the village and climbs the far side to the end of Steanbridge Lane for Snows Farm, where a public footpath crosses a stile in front of the farmhouse and drops to the Dillay Brook. Steanbridge itself, the crossing of the Slad Brook, is recorded in 1353.

Come back for lunch at the Woolpack. The dining room serves from midday to 2.30pm from Tuesday to Saturday and until 3.30pm on Sundays; on Mondays only the bar is open. The B4070 is the Stroud to Birdlip road and carries through traffic, so walk its verges with care.

Walks

The Laurie Lee Wildlife Way is the walk to do here: a 5-mile (8.4km) circuit of the valley from the Bulls Cross layby, created by the Wildlife Trust in 2013, with ten wooden posts carrying Lee's poems. It climbs about 330m in all and the Trust suggests three to five hours with stops. It crosses the B4070 at the north end of the village by the war memorial, 400m from the pub, and returns through Frith Wood; the Trust names the climb of about 100m up from the Slad Brook as the hardest part. Walkers on AllTrails found the paths muddy and slippery in the winter of 2025 to 2026 and met rare-breed cattle on the slopes in May 2026, and the Trust warns that ash dieback has forced a diversion early on, so follow the signs on the ground.

Over the ridge to the west, the walk from Painswick to Painswick Beacon climbs to an Iron Age hillfort, and the Cotswold Way passes through Painswick itself. Frith Wood is on our list of bluebell woods.

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Food and drink

The Woolpack is the only place to eat or drink in Slad. It describes itself as a tiny, dog-friendly pub, with a fireside bar, a dining room, a snug and vine-covered terraces, serving real ales, craft beer and cider. CAMRA lists Stroud Brewery's Budding and two beers from Uley Brewery, Bitter and Pigs Ear, among its regular ales. The bar opens daily from midday; the dining room serves lunch and dinner from Tuesday to Sunday and takes bookings online. Our guide to Cotswold pubs and their breweries has more on Uley.

Over the hill in Sheepscombe, the Butchers Arms is a free house where Lee also drank, about 2 miles by road, and Painswick has the cafés.

When to come

Spring and early summer are the valley's seasons: bluebells and wild garlic in Frith Wood from late April, and orchids on Swift's Hill, where the Trust lists 13 species including bee and frog orchids and gives April to August as the best time. The Wildlife Trust grazes cattle on the hill from April to October, so keep dogs on a lead. October brings the beech colour and the fungi. In winter the paths are slippery, and after rain the climb out of the valley is hard work.

The Woolpack fills at weekends, so book the dining room for Sunday lunch. The village itself has no events of its own that we have confirmed; the Painswick clipping on the third Sunday of September is about 2 miles away.