Matt Seymour on Unsplash
- Couples
- Families
- Autumn
A Cotswolds touring route by car: three days in a loop from Burford
A three-day driving loop through the Cotswolds from Burford, with where to park at every stop: the north to Broadway on day one, Sudeley, Painswick and the commons to Tetbury on day two, and Castle Combe, Malmesbury, Cirencester and Bibury back to Burford on day three.
- 3 days
- By car
- Nights: Broadway and Tetbury
- About 135 miles (215km) driving
- Parking at every stop
- Best April to October
Day 1: Burford to Broadway through the north
A free car park in Burford, Bourton before the charges, Stow, Campden and the tower
-
8.45am
8.45am Market town 45 minutes here
Burford
Park free at Guildenford, 166 bays, most for 4 hours and some for 10. Walk down the High Street to the bridge over the Windrush and the church of St John the Baptist.
-
9.45am
9.45am Village 1.5 hours here
Bourton-on-the-Water
About 20 minutes. Rissington Road car park is free before 10am and charged from then, £4.40 for 2 hours (2026), card or phone only. Walk the river and the green while they are quiet.
-
11.30am
11.30am Market town 2 hours here
Stow-on-the-Wold and lunch
About 10 minutes. The Fosseway car park is free, 98 bays; Maugersbury Road charges Bourton's tariff from 8am. The Square and St Edward's, then the Porch House, which serves lunch from midday.
-
1.45pm
1.45pm Market town 1.25 hours here
Chipping Campden
About 25 minutes. Market Square is 20 minutes free then £1 an hour (2026), card or phone; or park on Back Ends, behind the High Street. The High Street from the Market Hall of 1627 to St James's.
-
3.15pm
3.15pm Things to do 1 hour here
Broadway Tower
About 10 minutes. The tower's own car park is £3 for 4 hours (2026), and its gates lock at 5.15pm. Last admission to the tower 4.45pm from April to October.
-
4.30pm
4.30pm Market town The night here
Broadway for the night
Five minutes down the hill. Church Close is short stay, up to 4 hours for £3; Milestone Ground is long stay. Both charge from 8am to 6pm. The Lygon Arms and the Broadway Hotel have their own.
Day 2: Sudeley, Painswick and the commons to Tetbury
A castle and its gardens, a Rococo garden on the western edge, and the road across the commons
-
9.45am
9.45am Things to do 2.5 hours here
Sudeley Castle and Gardens
About 20 minutes. Free parking. Katherine Parr's tomb in St Mary's chapel and ten gardens. Daily mid-March to early November, 10am to 5pm, last admission 3pm. Adult £24 (2026).
-
12.30pm
12.30pm Market town 1.25 hours here
Lunch in Winchcombe
A few minutes away. Park in Bull Lane or Back Lane by RingGo. The Lion serves food from 8am to 9pm Monday to Saturday. The White Hart serves lunch from noon to 3pm and afternoon tea to 5pm.
-
2pm
2pm Market town 40 minutes here
Drive to Painswick
About 40 minutes south-west. Park free at the Rococo Garden, which keeps its car park for visitors, or use the district council's Stamages Lane car park for the churchyard, which is free for up to 23 hours (2026).
-
2.45pm
2.45pm Things to do 1.75 hours here
Painswick Rococo Garden and churchyard
The 1740s garden in a steep combe, last entry 4pm, then St Mary's churchyard of clipped yews and carved tombs. The garden closes after 1 November, apart from three dog weekends that month, and reopens in January for the snowdrops.
-
4.30pm
4.30pm Market town The night here
Across Minchinhampton Common to Tetbury
About 25 minutes. Drive across the common slowly: cattle are turned out on it each May, wander onto its unfenced roads, and several were killed by cars in 2026. In Tetbury the Old Railyard car park is free.
Day 3: Castle Combe, Malmesbury, Cirencester and Bibury
The south early, the abbey town, Roman Corinium and Arlington Row on the way back to Burford
-
9am
9am Village 1.25 hours here
Castle Combe
About 25 minutes. Park on Dunns Lane at the top, from 50p for an hour to £6.60 all day, and walk down to the bridge: there is almost nowhere to park in the lower village, and parking on its yellow lines is enforced.
-
10.45am
10.45am Market town 1.25 hours here
Malmesbury
About 20 minutes. Park at Cross Hayes in the middle of town. The abbey's Norman nave is free and open daily. The free Athelstan Museum in the Town Hall opens 10.30am Tuesday to Saturday and 11.30am on Sundays, and is closed on Mondays.
-
12.30pm
12.30pm Things to do 2.5 hours here
Lunch and the Corinium Museum, Cirencester
About 25 minutes. Waterloo, £3.80 for 2 hours (2026), card or phone only; Queen Street is free. The museum opens daily, 10am to 4pm. Adult £8.70 (2026).
-
3.30pm
3.30pm Village 1 hour here
Bibury and Arlington Row
About 15 minutes, as the day visitors thin out. No council car park: the trout farm's car park is £10 (2026), and its site asks drivers to follow signs to the rear entrance. Arlington Row and the river, then St Mary's.
-
4.45pm
4.45pm Market town 25 minutes here
Back to Burford
About 25 minutes, closing the loop where it began, with the A40 for home.
In more detail
Three days by car is enough to drive a loop through four of the Cotswolds' regions and see the best-known places in each without spending the trip in traffic. Start and finish in Burford, where the A40 from London meets the hills: day one goes north by Bourton, Stow and Chipping Campden to Broadway. Day two crosses the Cotswold Edge to Sudeley and Painswick and the commons to Tetbury. Day three takes Castle Combe, Malmesbury, Cirencester and Bibury on the way back. It is about 135 miles in all, and no single drive is longer than about 40 minutes.
Parking decides a driving trip in the Cotswolds more than anything else, so every stop below says where to leave the car and what it costs, from the councils' and the owners' own pages, checked in October 2026. The famous villages' car parks fill by late morning in spring and summer, and that is why the busiest ones come first in each day.
Why this route
A loop beats an out-and-back because it never repeats a road, and this one follows the grain of the country. The north is the classic Cotswolds of honey stone and wool towns, the Edge is the escarpment with its castle and the long views west, the Five Valleys round Stroud are steep and wooded, and the south is the flatter country of Malmesbury and Castle Combe. Cirencester and the Coln valley bring you home.
The order inside each day matters as much as the loop. Bourton's Rissington Road car park is free before 10am and the riverbank quiet, so it comes first; Castle Combe's street is empty at 9am and full by noon; Bibury is busiest between ten and four, so it comes last on the last day. Sudeley's last admission is 3pm and the Rococo Garden's is 4pm, so they sit early and late on day two.
Where to base yourself
Two nights, in two places, so you never drive back on yourself. Night one is Broadway: the Lygon Arms on the High Street has its own car park behind it, off Back Lane, with six EV charging points, and a spa with a pool, and the Broadway Hotel on the green has a free car park for residents, one space a room, but no EV charging. Night two is Tetbury: the Close has a small free car park for residents behind it, and the Hare and Hounds by Westonbirt has its own, free to guests.
Book hotels with parking. In Tetbury the Snooty Fox on the Market Place has none, with paid car parks three minutes' walk away, and many inns in the old towns are the same.
Day 1: Burford to Broadway
Burford's Guildenford car park is free, and before 9am it has room. Walk down the High Street to the bridge over the Windrush and the church, and drive on to Bourton for 9.45am: Rissington Road is free before 10am and the riverbank is still quiet. In Stow, the free Fosseway car park is a short walk from the Square, and the Porch House serves lunch from midday.
Chipping Campden's Market Square has only 32 bays, so park on Back Ends, behind the High Street, if it is full. Broadway Tower is the end of the afternoon, a folly of 1798 with a museum and a deer park, and its car park gates lock at 5.15pm, so be back at the car by five.
Day 2: Sudeley, Painswick and the commons
Sudeley Castle has free parking and opens at 10am, and half a day is not too much: Katherine Parr has lain in its chapel since 1548, and the ten gardens include the Queen's Garden, replanted in 1989. Lunch in Winchcombe, where the Lion and the White Hart both serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the White Hart serves afternoon tea between.
The drive to Painswick runs along the foot of the Edge for about 40 minutes. Park at the Rococo Garden, which has free parking for visitors, and see the garden before 4pm and the churchyard after. Then take the road over Minchinhampton Common, slowly, because the commoners' cattle wander onto the unfenced road, and drop down to Tetbury for the night. The Old Railyard car park in Tetbury is free.
Day 3: Castle Combe, Malmesbury, Cirencester and Bibury
Leave Tetbury by 8.30am. Castle Combe's parish council asks every visitor to park on Dunns Lane at the top and walk down, half a mile past the market cross to the bridge over the By Brook, and early is when the street is empty. In Malmesbury, Cross Hayes is in the middle of town, a few minutes from the abbey and the free Athelstan Museum, which is closed on Mondays.
Cirencester's council car parks are card, phone or app only; Queen Street, with 16 bays, is free. Lunch in the town, give the Corinium Museum an hour for its Roman mosaics, and cross the Market Place to St John the Baptist, the wool church. Bibury has no council car park and the county council fines cars left where they should not be, so use the trout farm's car park, £10 (2026), and walk down to Arlington Row. Burford is 25 minutes away, and the loop is closed.
The Cotswolds Info newsletter
Events, new places and the best of the season, about once a month. Unsubscribe at any time.
Swaps for rain or a quieter day
In rain, keep the indoor stops and drop the walks. The Lygon Arms' pool and the Broadway Museum fill a wet evening and morning, Sudeley's castle rooms are under cover, the Corinium Museum is the best rainy-day stop in the south, and Westonbirt, 10 minutes from Tetbury, has a restaurant and a café for a dry hour among the trees.
For a quieter loop, swap Bourton for Lower Slaughter, reached on foot from Bourton, swap Castle Combe for Biddestone, which has a free car park behind the village hall, and swap Bibury for Coln St Aldwyns, a few miles down the same river. Our guide to the Cotswolds without the crowds pairs each busy village with a quiet one.
The honest limits
This is a lot of driving for three days, and the lanes are narrow and slow. It sees each place for an hour or two, not a day, so for walking choose two regions and stay longer. Summer Saturdays on the A40 at Burford and the A429 through Stow can slow the driving, and on bank holidays the car parks in Bourton, Bibury and Castle Combe can be full by late morning.
Some stops are seasonal. Sudeley opens from mid-March to the start of November, the Rococo Garden from January to the start of November, and Broadway Tower's hours are shorter from November to March. Between November and mid-March, swap Sudeley for the walk to Belas Knap and, in November and December, the Rococo Garden for Painswick's churchyard and the Painswick Beacon walk.