Tewkesbury

Why come through here

The station is not in the town. Ashchurch for Tewkesbury is about 2 miles east on the Bristol to Birmingham line, a small unstaffed station with a 73-space car park, and Pulhams' 40 bus links it with the town about every 30 minutes, seven days a week, calling at the Cotswolds Designer Outlet on the way. From Cheltenham, Stagecoach's 42 leaves Clarence Street about hourly, from 5.45am to 7.10pm on weekdays, 7.15am to 6.45pm on Saturdays and 9.30am to 5.30pm on Sundays, and takes about 34 minutes to the Anchor in the town centre. Diamond's 540 runs from Evesham by Bredon and the villages under Bredon Hill about 18 times a day from Monday to Saturday, 40 to 55 minutes. No regular bus runs from Tewkesbury to Winchcombe: besides school services there is only the 630, a pre-booked community bus that comes in from the Winchcombe villages in the morning and goes back at 1.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday. So the Cotswold edge from here is the 42 to Cheltenham and the 606 from Pittville Street, a taxi of about 9 miles, or a car. The buses page has the 606's times.

By car Tewkesbury is at junction 9 of the M5, where the A46 and A438 cross, 15 minutes from Cheltenham, and the A46 east by Teddington is the road to Winchcombe and Broadway. The Cotswolds Designer Outlet opened at Ashchurch, by junction 9, on 16 July 2025. Its car parks are not the town's, and the 40 bus stops there. Park in the town at Spring Gardens on Oldbury Road (GL20 5LR), 288 spaces at £1.20 an hour and £4.80 for the day, free for Blue Badge holders, with 227 spaces on Wednesday and Saturday market days. The council's tariff is £1.20 for an hour, £2 for two, £2.80 for three and £4.80 for longer, payable by RingGo, from 8am to 5.30pm Monday to Saturday and from 12.30pm on Sundays. It has eight 7kW charging points, and parking is free while you charge.

A day in the town

The abbey is the day. Begun in 1102 and consecrated in 1121, it has a Norman nave and a central tower 45m high and 14m square, which the abbey calls the largest Norman church tower in existence, and it survived the Dissolution because the townspeople bought it from the Crown in 1540 for £453. It is open daily from 9.30am to 4pm. The Lady Chapel was quarried away after 1540, and the east end is a ring of chantry chapels. On 4 May 1471 Lancastrians who fled the battle took refuge in the church; they were taken out, tried and executed, and the church may have had to be reconsecrated after the bloodshed.

From the abbey walk up Church Street and the High Street between the jettied fronts and the alleys that run down to the rivers, then out along the Mill Avon to the Abbey Mill and the Severn Ham, the meadow between the two rivers, which is under water in a wet winter. The Battlefield Trail from the town crosses the Bloody Meadow, by tradition where the slaughter was worst. The museum, the Roses Theatre and the river trips are on Visit Tewkesbury (opens in a new tab), and the Heritage and Visitor Centre is at 100 Church Street.

Into the Cotswolds from here

Bredon Hill is the first Cotswold, 3 miles (5km) from the town across the Avon and inside the National Landscape on its own, with the villages of Bredon, Kemerton and Overbury round its skirt on the 540 bus route and a path to the top from any of them. From the top the escarpment proper is laid out to the east, from Broadway Tower round to Cleeve Hill. The road loop from Tewkesbury runs the A46 to Winchcombe for Sudeley Castle and Hailes Abbey, on by Stanton and Snowshill to Broadway, and home across the vale by Evesham and the 540's villages under Bredon, about 40 miles in all.

For the hills on foot, Cleeve Common, the highest ground in the Cotswolds at 330m, is about 20 minutes away by car. The 9-mile loop from Winchcombe over Belas Knap and the common and the shorter circuit of Cleeve Cloud are the two to choose between, and both look back over the vale to Tewkesbury's tower and Bredon. Without a car, the 42 to Cheltenham and the 606 to Winchcombe makes the same day from Monday to Saturday.

The Cotswolds Info newsletter

Events, new places and the best of the season, about once a month. Unsubscribe at any time.

Leave this field blank

Your name

Your email address

Yes, send me the Cotswolds Info newsletter

Sign me up

When to come

The Medieval Festival on the second full weekend of July (Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 July in 2027, 11am to 6pm and 11am to 5pm) calls itself the largest event of its kind in Europe. It is held on the battlefield off Gloucester Road five minutes' walk from the centre, with more events in the town and at the abbey. In 2026 the Roses Theatre and the festival brought back the parade through the town centre, on the Sunday at 11.15am. Entry is free and the festival car parks charge £10. The battle's anniversary is marked with a walk in early May (3 May in 2026). The abbey is at its emptiest on a weekday morning, and the rivers at their highest, and the Ham under water, in a wet winter.