Stanton

What to see

The village is the sight, and it takes half an hour on foot. Start at the cross where the High Street meets Church Lane: medieval steps and socket carrying a later shaft, topped by a sundial, a ball and a cross, listed Grade II and a scheduled monument. Down Church Lane is St Michael and All Angels, listed Grade I, with a spired tower, work from the twelfth to the seventeenth century, medieval wall paintings and work by Ninian Comper: an east window of 1918, in which he reset medieval glass, and a screen and rood loft of 1923. The chancel was rebuilt in 1874, and the pulpit is seventeenth century.

Then walk up the street. Much of what you see is the work of one man: Sir Philip Stott, an architect who made his money designing cotton mills, bought the Stanton Court estate at auction on 10 August 1906 and spent the next decades restoring the village. Stanton Court, built for the Izod family in the seventeenth century, is listed Grade II and was extensively altered by and for Stott; the street lamps are to his own design, lit from 1907 by his generator; the thatched barn came from Offenham in 1927. Warren House, the manor, was built by the Warne or Warren family, who bought land here in 1577, and is listed Grade II*. About fifty buildings in the conservation area are listed. Above the Mount Inn, Stanton Guildhouse, Grade II, has run arts and crafts courses since 1973.

An afternoon in Stanton

Leave the car at the parish car park by the cricket ground and walk up into the village, which takes a few minutes. Give the cross and the church twenty minutes, then climb the street to the Mount Inn for lunch (the kitchen stops at 2pm, Tuesday to Saturday, and 3pm on Sunday). If you have the afternoon, go on up the Cotswold Way behind the pub for the view back over the village, and come down the same way; if you have the day, the 6.6-mile loop to Snowshill leaves from the same car park.

Walks from Stanton

Stanton is the best base for walking on this stretch of the Cotswold Way. Stanton, Snowshill and the edge is a 6.6-mile (10.6km) loop from the parish car park, three and a half to four and a half hours with steep sections and stiles: up the Cotswold Way, through Littleworth Wood to Snowshill and its manor, and back along the top. The Cotswold Way from Broadway to Wood Stanway, 6.5 miles (10.5km) one way, climbs to Shenberrow and drops steeply into Stanton before the field paths past Stanway's church. From Snowshill, the short Snowswood loop is 2 miles and hilly. The trail runs on to Broadway one way and Hailes and Winchcombe the other.

Food and drink

There is one pub and nothing else, so plan round it. The Mount Inn, at the top of the High Street (WR12 7NE), is a Donnington Brewery pub. It is closed on Mondays; from Tuesday to Saturday it opens from midday to 3pm and 6pm to 11pm, with food until 2pm and 9pm, and on Sunday from midday to 4pm with food until 3pm. Its car park is for customers only. For a shop, a café or breakfast, Broadway is 3 miles away, and the Snowshill Arms is at the halfway point of the long walk. Donnington's other pubs are in our guide to Cotswold pubs and the breweries behind them.

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When to come

Spring and autumn are the seasons for the walk, when the climb to the edge is firm underfoot and the woods at Littleworth have leaf or colour. Summer weekends are when Stanton earns its keep: while Broadway's car parks fill, the street here stays quiet. Monday is the day to avoid, because the Mount Inn is shut and there is nowhere else. The 606 bus does not run on Sundays. The descent of the Cotswold Way into Stanton is steep and can be slippery after rain, so wear boots.