Cleveland Lakes, Cotswold Lakes Trust
Sport and activity · Cirencester
The Cotswold Lakes Trust's reserve near Ashton Keynes: 330 acres with bird hides on Wickwater Lake and open-water swimming and paddleboarding on Waterhay Lake.
Verified Oct 2026
Things to do in the Cotswolds
90 places · every place verified by us
Palaces and castles, Roman remains, wool churches, gardens, steam trains and farm parks. Here are the places worth planning a day around, with what they cost in 2026.
90 places
90 places
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Cogges Manor Farm
Family days out · Witney
A manor house of the thirteenth century with a farm, walled garden, orchard and adventure playground on the edge of Witney, with free parking.
Family-friendly · Dog-friendly · Car-free
Verified Nov 2026
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Colesbourne Park
Parks and gardens · Withington
The Elwes family's snowdrop garden on the A435 between Cheltenham and Cirencester, with over 300 varieties round the house and lake, open on eight weekend days in late January and February by advance ticket only.
Dog-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Corinium Museum
Museums and galleries · Cirencester
Cirencester's museum of Roman Corinium, with the Hare, Four Seasons and Orpheus mosaics, Anglo-Saxon grave goods and medieval sculpture.
Family-friendly · Rainy days · Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
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Cotswold Boat Hire, Buscot Lock
Parks and gardens · Lechlade-on-Thames
Self-drive boat hire on the upper Thames from Buscot Lock near Lechlade: small electric boats by the hour and cruisers by the half day or day, April to October.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
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Cotswold Canals Trust boat trips, Stroud
Tours and experiences · Stroud
Volunteer-crewed trips on the restored Thames and Severn Canal from Wallbridge in Stroud, run by the Cotswold Canals Trust, including a lunch cruise to Stroud Brewery.
Family-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
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Cotswold Falconry Centre
Wildlife and nature · Moreton-in-Marsh
About 150 birds of prey of more than 60 species beside Batsford Arboretum near Moreton-in-Marsh, with three flying displays a day from mid-February to mid-November.
Family-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Cotswold Farm Park
Family days out · Guiting Power
Adam Henson's farm near Guiting Power, opened by his father Joe in 1971 to show rare and native breeds, with play barns, a restaurant and a Changing Places toilet.
Family-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Cotswold Gliding Club
Sport and activity · Minchinhampton
One of the UK's larger gliding clubs, at Aston Down airfield between Stroud and Cirencester, offering air experience flights, motorglider flights and courses.
Verified Oct 2026
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Cotswold Lavender
Parks and gardens · Snowshill
Forty-five acres of lavender fields at Snowshill, first planted in 1999, open for a few weeks from mid-June to early August when the lavender flowers.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Cotswold Motoring Museum
Museums and galleries · Bourton-on-the-Water
A museum of twentieth-century motoring and toys in an eighteenth-century watermill on the Windrush in Bourton-on-the-Water, with seven galleries, over 800 enamel signs and Brum from the children's television series.
Family-friendly · Rainy days · Dog-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Cotswold Perfumery
Tours and experiences · Bourton-on-the-Water
A perfumery founded in 1966 in a former garage on Victoria Street in Bourton-on-the-Water, with a shop and one-day perfume-making courses.
Verified Oct 2026
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Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens
Wildlife and nature · Burford
A wildlife park and gardens near Burford with animals from around the world, a narrow-gauge railway, free parking and room for dogs on leads in most of it.
Family-friendly · Dog-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Cotswolds Distillery
Tours and experiences · Shipston-on-Stour
The distillery at Stourton, near Shipston-on-Stour, that made the first Cotswolds single malt whisky, with daily tours and tastings, a shop and the Still House Café.
Verified Oct 2026
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Court Barn Museum
Museums and galleries · Chipping Campden
Chipping Campden's museum of craft and design, telling the story of Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft and the makers who followed, with half price for bus passengers.
Rainy days · Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
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Crocodiles of the World
Wildlife and nature · Witney
A zoo at Brize Norton, near Witney and Burford, keeping more than 100 crocodiles, alligators and caimans of 19 species, open daily all year from 10am except Christmas Day.
Family-friendly · Rainy days
Verified Nov 2026
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Diddly Squat Farm Shop
Farm shops and delis · Charlbury
Jeremy Clarkson's farm shop on the Chipping Norton road near Chadlington, opened in 2020 and made famous by Clarkson's Farm, open Tuesday to Sunday outside its winter break, with a café and lambing barn seating.
Verified Nov 2026
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Dunkirk Mill Museum
Museums and galleries · Nailsworth
The Stroudwater Textile Trust's working mill museum near Nailsworth, where an 1855 waterwheel drives cloth-finishing machinery. Closed until spring 2027; normally open on set afternoons from April to September.
Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
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Durham House Antiques
Antiques and vintage · Stow-on-the-Wold
An antiques centre on Sheep Street, Stow-on-the-Wold, where about 30 dealers share four large showrooms of furniture, paintings, silver, glass, jewellery and books, open every day.
Rainy days
Verified Oct 2026
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Dursley Heritage Centre
Museums and galleries · Dursley
A volunteer-run museum opposite Dursley's Market House, telling the town's story from cloth to Lister engines, with an early Pedersen bicycle, open four mornings a week.
Rainy days · Walker-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Dyrham Park
Historic houses and heritage · Marshfield
William Blathwayt's baroque house of the 1690s below the Cotswold edge north of Bath, with a 270-acre deer park, a West Garden and Delftware, cared for by the National Trust and open through the winter as well as the summer.
Family-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Far Peak Climbing, near Northleach
Sport and activity · Northleach
An outdoor climbing centre off the Fosse Way south of Northleach, with a 15m tower, indoor and outdoor bouldering, a low ropes course and taster sessions from age 3.
Family-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Gigg Mill Weaving Shed, Nailsworth
Historic houses and heritage · Nailsworth
The Stroudwater Textile Trust's weaving shed on the Old Bristol Road at Nailsworth, where guides work hand-looms and a power loom and you can try weaving.
Family-friendly · Rainy days
Verified Nov 2026
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Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway
Family days out · Winchcombe
A heritage railway running steam and diesel trains for 14 miles between Cheltenham Race Course and Broadway, by Winchcombe and Toddington.
Family-friendly · Dog-friendly · Rainy days
Verified Oct 2026
Palaces, castles and great houses
Blenheim Palace at Woodstock, a World Heritage Site and Churchill's birthplace, is the grandest; its ticket lasts a year. Sudeley Castle near Winchcombe, where Katherine Parr is buried, opens daily from mid-March to the start of November. Snowshill Manor, Charles Wade's house of curiosities, and Lacock Abbey, where Fox Talbot made the earliest surviving negative, belong to the National Trust. Kelmscott Manor, William Morris's country home, opens from April to October. Our guide to country houses and castles has the opening days for each.
Romans and prehistory
Cirencester's Corinium Museum shows Roman mosaics from a town and district where more than 90 are known, and its amphitheatre, which held about 8,000 people, is free to walk into. Belas Knap, a Neolithic long barrow above Winchcombe, is free and open in daylight. Our guide to the Roman Cotswolds goes on to Chedworth.
Churches
The wool churches are free and open most days: Chipping Campden, Northleach with its merchants' brasses, Fairford with its complete set of medieval glass, and Cirencester's great porch on the Market Place.
With children
The Cotswold Wildlife Park near Burford, Birdland and the Model Village at Bourton-on-the-Water, and Adam Henson's Cotswold Farm Park near Guiting Power are the family favourites. The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway runs steam trains between Cheltenham Race Course and Broadway from spring to late autumn. More ideas are in the Cotswolds with children, and for a wet day, the Cotswolds on a rainy day. Our Cotswolds weekend with children fits the Farm Park, Bourton and the Wildlife Park into two days.
Gardens
Hidcote, near Chipping Campden, is one of the best-known Cotswold gardens, and Kiftsgate Court is close by. Painswick Rococo Garden was restored from a painting of 1748, and Westonbirt, the National Arboretum near Tetbury, is open every day but Christmas Day. See our guide to the great gardens.
Free things to do
Many of the best things cost nothing: the Museum in the Park at Stroud, the Oxfordshire Museum at Woodstock, the Athelstan Museum at Malmesbury, Cirencester's amphitheatre, Minster Lovell Hall, the Tolsey at Burford and every circular walk the Cotswolds National Landscape publishes. Our short walks and half-day walks are a good place to start, and our Strange Things stories find the oddest corners. Our guides to free things to do in the Cotswolds and the best viewpoints have the full lists.
Events through the year
The big days out are the Cheltenham Festival, four days of jump racing in mid-March; the Badminton Horse Trials in early May; the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford in July; and the Moreton Show, an agricultural show near Moreton-in-Marsh, in early September. Around the late May bank holiday, Chipping Campden holds Robert Dover's Olimpick Games and the Scuttlebrook Wake, and Tetbury its Woolsack Races on the bank holiday Monday. Check each organiser’s date before you go.
For music, the Chipping Campden Music Festival fills St James's Church for a fortnight in May, and the Guiting Music Festival brings ten days of concerts to Guiting Power at the end of July. From November, Blenheim and Westonbirt open their Christmas light trails; our guides to when to visit and Christmas in the Cotswolds have the rest of the year.
In September, Heritage Open Days open private houses, chapels, museums and town halls free for ten days, from Cirencester to Witney.
Region by region, see things to do in the North Cotswolds, the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, Cirencester and the Coln Valley, Stroud and the Five Valleys, the Cotswold Edge and the South Cotswolds. For a plan that takes in most of them, our touring route by car is a three-day loop from Burford.
Sights worth a detour
Free to see from the path or the street, from Arlington Row to the top of Cleeve Hill.
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Arlington Row, Bibury
Sight · Historic building · Bibury
Arlington Row is a terrace of stone cottages above the mill stream in Bibury, built as a wool store in the late fourteenth century and turned into weavers' homes in the seventeenth. Grade I and owned by the National Trust, the cottages are lived in and seen from the path.
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Market Hall, Chipping Campden
Sight · Historic building · Chipping Campden
The open arcade of 1627 in the middle of Chipping Campden's High Street, built by Sir Baptist Hicks as a sheltered market for butter, cheese and poultry, saved from sale to America in the 1940s and now the National Trust's. Grade I; the Cotswold Way starts beside it.
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The Rollright Stones
Sight · Hill fort or barrow · The Oxfordshire Cotswolds
The Rollright Stones are three prehistoric monuments on a ridge on the Oxfordshire and Warwickshire border, built over nearly 2,000 years: the Whispering Knights burial chamber of about 3800 BC, the King's Men circle of about 2500 BC and the King Stone. Open daily; small fee.
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Tyndale Monument, North Nibley
Sight · Monument · Wotton-under-Edge
The Tyndale Monument is the tower on Nibley Knoll above North Nibley, built in 1866 by S. S. Teulon in memory of William Tyndale, translator of the first printed English New Testament. Grade II*; usually open to climb, free, with a key nearby if locked.
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Cleeve Common
Sight · Common or park · The Cotswold Edge
Gloucestershire’s largest common: more than 400 hectares of open limestone grassland on the Cotswold Edge above Cheltenham, with the highest point of the Cotswolds at 330m, an Iron Age hillfort, a Bronze Age cross dyke and views to the Malverns and the Black Mountains.
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Painswick Beacon
Sight · Hill fort or barrow · Painswick
Painswick Beacon is a hill north of Painswick, about 280m high, crowned by a large Iron Age hill fort with triple ramparts. Royalist troops camped here in 1643. It is open common land on the Cotswold Way, shared with a golf course, with views over the Severn Vale.
Events through the year
Racing, eventing, an airshow, a country show and the Christmas light trails.
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Cheltenham Festival
Event · Cheltenham Racecourse, Prestbury ·
Four days of jump racing at Cheltenham Racecourse in mid March, with 28 races and the Gold Cup on the Friday; the 2027 Festival runs from Tuesday 16 to Friday 19 March.
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Badminton Horse Trials
Event · Badminton House park, Badminton ·
Five days of eventing in the park of Badminton House in early May, with dressage, cross-country on the Saturday and show jumping; in 2027 from Wednesday 5 to Sunday 9 May.
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Royal International Air Tattoo
Event · RAF Fairford ·
Three days of military and civil aircraft on the ground and in the air at RAF Fairford each July; in 2027 from Friday 16 to Sunday 18 July, with under-18s free with an adult.
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Moreton Show
Event · The showground, Batsford Estate, Moreton-in-Marsh ·
The north Cotswolds' agricultural show, on a Saturday in early September on the Batsford Estate near Moreton-in-Marsh, with livestock, horses and free entry for children; next on Saturday 4 September 2027.
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Robert Dover's Cotswold Olimpick Games
Event · Dover's Hill, Weston Subedge, Chipping Campden ·
Shin-kicking, tug of war and running races on Dover's Hill above Chipping Campden on the Friday evening after the late May bank holiday, games first held in 1612.
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Christmas at Blenheim Palace
Event · Blenheim Palace, Woodstock ·
A light trail of more than a million lights through the gardens and grounds of Blenheim Palace, with Cinderella told in the State Rooms, from mid November to early January.
Good to know
- Seasons
- Many houses and gardens close from November to March. Check before you go.
- Book ahead
- Blenheim is cheaper online, Highgrove is by booked tour only, and Kelmscott sells half its timed tickets online and keeps the other half for visitors who turn up on the day.
- By bus
- Westonbirt and Court Barn give discounts to visitors who arrive by bus.
- Memberships
- National Trust members go free at Snowshill, Lacock and Hidcote; English Heritage runs Hailes Abbey and Belas Knap.
Ideas for your next day out
What is open, what is on and what is in season, about once a month.
Questions
What is the best thing to do in the Cotswolds?
For most first visits, a walk between villages such as Bourton-on-the-Water and the Slaughters, with a great house such as Blenheim, Sudeley or Snowshill Manor.
What can you do for free in the Cotswolds?
Walk, visit the wool churches, the Roman amphitheatre at Cirencester and Minster Lovell Hall, and the free museums at Stroud, Woodstock and Malmesbury.
What is there to do in the Cotswolds with children?
The Cotswold Wildlife Park, Birdland and the Model Village at Bourton, the Cotswold Farm Park and the steam railway.