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Five days in the Cotswolds by car: the north, then the Five Valleys
A five-day Cotswolds itinerary by car with two bases: three nights in Northleach for Campden, Broadway, the Slaughters, Bibury and Westonbirt, then two in Painswick for the Rococo Garden, Laurie Lee's Slad, Stroud's Saturday market and the commons.
- 5 days
- By car
- Bases: Northleach, then Painswick
- About 175 miles (280km) driving
- About 16 miles (26km) on foot
- Start on a Tuesday
Day 1: Chipping Campden, Broadway, Stanton and Snowshill
The wool town, the tower and the villages under the escarpment
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9.30am
9.30am Market town 1.5 hours here
Chipping Campden
About 40 minutes from Northleach. The High Street from the Market Hall of 1627 past Grevel's House to the almshouses and St James's. Market Square: 20 minutes free, then £1 an hour (2026).
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11.15am
11.15am Things to do 1 hour here
Broadway Tower
About 10 minutes. A folly of 1798 on Beacon Hill, with a museum, a roof platform and a deer park. Opens 10am (10.30am on weekdays from November to March). Car park £3 for 4 hours (2026).
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12.30pm
12.30pm Market town 1.25 hours here
Lunch in Broadway
Five minutes down the hill. Park at Church Close or Milestone Ground. The Tavern at the Lygon Arms serves from midday to 3pm every day.
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2pm
2pm Village 45 minutes here
Stanton
About 10 minutes. A village restored from 1906, with a medieval cross and a Grade I church. Use the parish car park by the cricket ground and walk up.
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3pm
3pm Things to do 1.5 hours here
Snowshill Manor
Five minutes up the hill. Charles Wade's house of collections. Daily to 1 November, then November weekends only, last manor entry 1.30pm. Adult £18 to 1 November, £13 after (2026). Free car park, 450m from the house.
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5pm
5pm Places to stay The night here
Northleach for three nights
About 30 minutes. The Wheatsheaf, a coaching inn on West End, serves food from breakfast to dinner every day and takes families and dogs. Check-in from 3pm.
Day 2: Bourton, the Slaughters, Stow and Chedworth
The water villages on foot, the hilltop town and the Roman villa
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9am
9am Village 15 minutes here
Bourton-on-the-Water
About 15 minutes. Rissington Road car park is free before 10am, then charged. Leave the car there for the morning.
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9.15am
9.15am On foot
Walk to Upper and Lower Slaughter
A 6-mile (9.7km) circuit with a few stiles: up to Upper Slaughter, down the River Eye past Lower Slaughter's mill. Walkers say its two crossings of the Fosse Way (A429) need care, and report mud on the bridleways after rain.
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Midday
Midday Market town 1.5 hours here
Lunch in Stow-on-the-Wold
About 15 minutes. Park free at the Fosseway car park. The market cross and St Edward's church. The Porch House serves food every day.
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2pm
2pm Things to do 1.5 hours here
Chedworth Roman Villa
About 30 minutes. Mosaics, two bath suites and a water shrine, found in 1864. Adult £15 (2026). Hours change through the year. Assistance dogs only.
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4pm
4pm Market town 45 minutes here
Northleach church
About 10 minutes. The wool church of St Peter and St Paul, with its brasses to wool merchants. Park in the Market Place.
Day 3: Bibury, Cirencester, Tetbury and Westonbirt
Arlington Row early, Roman Corinium, the Market House and the arboretum
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9am
9am Village 1 hour here
Bibury and Arlington Row
About 15 minutes. Arlington Row before the coaches, then St Mary's. Little roadside parking. The trout farm's car park is £10 (2026).
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10.30am
10.30am Things to do 1.5 hours here
Corinium Museum
About 20 minutes to Cirencester. Roman mosaics from a town and district where more than 90 are known. Adult £8.70 (2026). Open daily, 10am to 4pm.
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Midday
Midday Market town 1.5 hours here
Cirencester
St John the Baptist, the wool church on the Market Place, then lunch. Council car parks are card or phone only; Queen Street is free.
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2pm
2pm Market town 1 hour here
Tetbury
About 25 minutes. Park free at the Old Railyard, climb the Chipping Steps to the Market House of 1655, and see St Mary's Gothick interior.
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3.15pm
3.15pm Things to do 1.5 hours here
Westonbirt Arboretum
About 10 minutes. Fifteen thousand trees and shrubs and a 300m treetop walkway. Last admission 4.30pm. Book ahead from late September to mid-November. About an hour back to Northleach.
Day 4: Painswick and its beacon
The churchyard yews, the Rococo Garden and the climb to the hill fort
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9.30am
9.30am Market town 40 minutes here
Drive to Painswick
About 40 minutes south-west. Park free in the district council's long-stay car park on Stamages Lane, for up to 23 hours (2026), 56 bays with four EV charging bays; walkers report it fills early on fine days. Check in at the inn later.
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10.15am
10.15am Market town 45 minutes here
St Mary's churchyard
Clipped yews and carved tombs, most by the Bryan family of masons. The church's tomb trail map hangs in the porch; John Bryan's pyramid is south-east of the lych gate. The church opens daily from 9am.
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11am
11am Things to do 2.5 hours here
Painswick Rococo Garden
A 1740s pleasure garden in a steep combe, open daily to the start of November, last entry 4pm. Lunch in the café from midday to 2.30pm. Adult £12.80 without Gift Aid (2026).
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2pm
2pm On foot
Painswick and Painswick Beacon
A 5-mile (8.2km) loop with 250m of climbing, out by the Holcombe farms, up to the Iron Age ramparts on the Beacon, and down past the golf course and the Rococo Garden.
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5pm
5pm Places to stay The night here
Painswick for two nights
The Falcon on New Street, on the Cotswold Way, with dogs welcome everywhere, or the Painswick, with valley views and guest passes to the Rococo Garden when you book direct. Both list check-in from 3pm.
Day 5: Stroud market, Slad and the commons
The Saturday market, Laurie Lee's valley on foot, and Minchinhampton Common on the way home
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9am
9am Eat and drink 1.25 hours here
Stroud Farmers' Market
About 10 minutes. Saturdays only, 9am to 2pm, on Cornhill and the streets round it. Council car parks from 90p an hour (2026).
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10.30am
10.30am On foot
A 5-mile (8.4km) loop from the free layby at Bulls Cross round the Slad valley, past ten posts carrying Lee's poems. Steep climbs, about 330m in all.
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1.30pm
1.30pm Eat and drink 1 hour here
Lunch at the Woolpack, Slad
Laurie Lee's pub, 400m off the walk, opposite the church where he is buried. Lunch until 2.30pm Tuesday to Saturday. No food on Mondays. Book at weekends.
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3pm
3pm Market town 1.5 hours here
Minchinhampton Common and Nailsworth
About 20 minutes. Cross the common slowly, as cattle graze it from May and wander onto its unfenced roads, and drop down to Nailsworth's free council car parks (2026), two hours in the short-stay bays by day, before the drive home.
In more detail
Five days in the Cotswolds is enough for two regions, and the best pair is the North Cotswolds and the Five Valleys, because they are the most unlike each other. Spend three nights in Northleach for Chipping Campden, Broadway, Bourton and the Slaughters, Bibury, Cirencester and Westonbirt, then drive south-west on the fourth morning to Painswick for two nights, the Rococo Garden, Laurie Lee's Slad and Stroud's Saturday market. It is about 175 miles by car in all, with a walk of two to three hours on three of the five days.
The first three days are our three days in the Cotswolds, which has each stop in more detail. The last two are new. Every place, walk and inn here has a page of ours with hours and prices checked in October 2026, and our guide to Cotswolds itineraries has the plans for other lengths.
Why this route
The north is the Cotswolds of the postcards: honey stone, wool towns, the water villages and the escarpment above Broadway. The Five Valleys round Stroud are greyer stone, steep beech woods and old cloth mills, with commons on the tops and a quieter feel. Seeing both is the difference between visiting the famous villages and understanding the hills.
The order is set by the week. Start on a Tuesday and day five falls on a Saturday, when Stroud's farmers' market fills Cornhill from 9am. Day two's Bourton walk starts before 10am, when Rissington Road car park is free and the riverbank quiet, and day three reaches Bibury at 9am for the same reason. Westonbirt is at the end of day three because its last admission is 4.30pm, and the Rococo Garden is on day four because it opens every day in season.
With a week, a week in the Cotswolds adds the Cotswold Edge and the South Cotswolds from bases in Stow and Malmesbury.
Where to base yourself
For the north, Northleach, in the middle, so that no day ends more than about an hour from bed. The Wheatsheaf, a seventeenth-century coaching inn, has fourteen rooms and serves food from breakfast to dinner every day. Its Boutique and Bigger Boutique rooms take dogs, up to two in a room, at £25 per dog per night (2026), so mention the dog when you book. Check-in is from 3pm and check-out by 11am. Stow-on-the-Wold works as well, with the Kings Arms on the Square and its own car park.
For the Five Valleys, Painswick. The Falcon on New Street has eleven rooms on the Cotswold Way and lets dogs go anywhere; the Painswick is the hotel, with valley views and guest passes to the Rococo Garden for guests who book direct. Both are a short walk from the churchyard, and both list check-in from 3pm.
Days one to three: the north
Day one runs along the escarpment: Chipping Campden's High Street, Broadway Tower at 11am, lunch in Broadway, then Stanton, restored from 1906, and Snowshill Manor, Charles Wade's house of collections. Day two is the water villages: park at Bourton before 10am, walk the 6-mile loop by both Slaughters, lunch in Stow, and spend the afternoon at Chedworth Roman Villa and Northleach's wool church.
Day three goes south: Bibury at 9am for Arlington Row before the visitors, the Corinium Museum in Cirencester for its mosaics, Tetbury's Market House in the afternoon and Westonbirt to finish. It is the longest day, with about an hour's drive back to Northleach at the end. If that is too much, drop Westonbirt and keep it for a second visit.
Days four and five: the Five Valleys
On day four, drive to Painswick for the churchyard, where the clipped yews stand among table tombs carved by the Bryan family, and walk out to the Rococo Garden for lunch in its café. In the afternoon, climb to the Iron Age ramparts on Painswick Beacon, 5 miles with 250m of climbing, cattle on the Beacon permitting. The walk comes home past the garden's gate.
Day five begins at Stroud's farmers' market, then the Laurie Lee Wildlife Way round the Slad valley, 5 steep miles past ten posts carrying Lee's poems, with lunch at the Woolpack, his local, and his grave at Holy Trinity across the road. On the way home, cross Minchinhampton Common slowly, since cattle graze it from May and wander onto its unfenced roads, and stop in Nailsworth. From April to September Dunkirk Mill, just outside the town, opens on set days for guided visits at 2pm and 3pm, best booked ahead, to see its waterwheel turn the cloth machinery.
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The south instead of the Five Valleys
If you would rather end in the South Cotswolds, swap Painswick for Malmesbury and follow our weekend in the South Cotswolds: Tetbury's Market House and Westonbirt on day four, Castle Combe early, Biddestone and Lacock on day five. In that case drop Tetbury and Westonbirt from day three and give the afternoon to the walk through Cirencester Park instead. The park needs a £4 day pass (2026). The Old Bell, beside the abbey, takes dogs in many of its rooms.
Swaps for rain or a quieter day
In rain, keep Snowshill, the Corinium Museum and Chedworth, which are under cover, and swap the Beacon walk for Stroud's Museum in the Park, free and open Tuesday to Sunday. For a quieter day two, walk from Lower Slaughter to Upper Slaughter and back, 2 miles, and give the morning to Batsford Arboretum instead of Bourton.
The honest limits
Five days by car is still a lot of driving on narrow lanes, and day three is long. Several stops are seasonal: the Rococo Garden closes after 1 November, apart from three dog weekends that month, until its snowdrop season in the new year, when February visits must be booked, Dunkirk Mill opens only from April to September, Snowshill Manor opens only at weekends in November, with an earlier last entry, and the Museum in the Park closes from just before Christmas to late January. The Woolpack serves no food on Mondays, so if your days fall differently, eat at the Butchers Arms at Sheepscombe instead.