Great, Little and Wyck Rissington

What to see

St Laurence's Church, Wyck Rissington, Grade I and open every day in daylight, was consecrated in 1269 and keeps a twelfth-century corbel table, a tub font of about 1200 and an east wall of paired lancets with diamond-shaped lights above them. Gustav Holst, as a teenager in Cheltenham, was organist here in 1892 and 1893, and the organ he played is still in use. A mosaic on the wall records a maze that a rector laid out in the rectory garden, which has since gone. The green outside is about six acres and a registered common, lined with horse chestnuts planted for the coronations of 1936 and 1953 and the Silver Jubilee. The parish council lets the grass grow in early summer for the wild flowers and takes a hay cut.

St Peter's, Little Rissington, is a twelfth-century church with a thirteenth-century chancel and a short fifteenth-century tower, restored in 1850 and 1883, open each day for prayer and reached by a footpath across a field from the village. Its churchyard holds the graves of 49 service personnel of the Second World War from RAF Little Rissington, in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's care, with pre-war and post-war burials beside them, and a window dedicated in 1985 to those who died serving at the station between 1937 and 1976, carrying the crests of the Central Flying School and the Red Arrows. An RAF service is held on the first Sunday of September at 3pm.

St John the Baptist, Great Rissington, Grade II*, has a tower of about 1200 with a fifteenth-century top and was largely rebuilt in 1873. On the wall of the nave are the photographs and the memorial of the 13 men of the village killed in the First World War, five of them the Souls brothers, three dead in 1916 and the twins, aged 31, in 1918. Outside, the upper green is triangular and the lower green was enclosed in 1816.

A morning here

The three are not on one road, so pick one, or give the morning to Wyck on foot from Bourton and the afternoon to the others by car. From Bourton's war memorial, the walk crosses Greystones Farm and the two rivers to Wyck in about an hour. Sit on the green, see the church and the mosaic, and come back by Rissington Mill. Then drive to Little Rissington for the churchyard and on to Great Rissington for the Souls memorial and lunch at the Lamb.

Walks

Bourton-on-the-Water and Wyck Rissington is the 4-mile (7km) loop on the National Landscape's Miles Without Stiles list: out past the Iron Age roundhouse on Greystones Farm, over the Eye and the Dikler on the Oxfordshire Way to the green and the church, back by Rissington Mill and a small lake. It is easy, with 37m of climb, and muddy after rain. The Oxfordshire Way runs on from Wyck towards Henley, and the 28-mile Gustav Holst Way from Cranham ends at St Laurence's door.

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Food and drink

The Lamb Inn at Great Rissington is the pub of the three, in a listed building of the late seventeenth century, with bedrooms, a bar open from noon every day, dinner from 6pm except Sundays, Sunday lunch until 5.30pm, breakfast from 7.30am and a car charger in the car park. The restaurant is closed at lunchtime on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Wyck Rissington has nothing to buy and Little Rissington no pub, so walkers eat in Bourton, where the Croft by the river serves breakfast to afternoon tea and the Old New Inn has a beer garden.

When to come

Wyck's green is at its best in May, when the chestnuts flower and the grass is left long, and the walk from Bourton is driest from late spring to early autumn. The first Sunday in September brings the RAF service to Little Rissington. Bourton's crowds do not come up the hill in any season. The one time the Rissingtons feel busy is a fine Sunday lunchtime at the Lamb.