Sezincote House and Garden
Parks and gardens · Moreton-in-Marsh
A Mughal-style house of 1805 and its water garden near Moreton-in-Marsh, privately owned, with the garden open from March to November, midweek.
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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Snowshill Manor and Garden
Historic houses and heritage · Snowshill
Charles Wade's house of collected craftsmanship, from bicycles to armour, above Broadway, given to the National Trust in 1951, with its garden and model village.
Dog-friendly · EV charging
Verified Oct 2026
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Stanway House and Fountain
Historic houses and heritage · Stanway
A Jacobean manor below the Cotswold edge near Winchcombe, home of the Earls of Wemyss, with a 1720s water garden and a single-jet fountain about 92m high, open on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons in summer.
Dog-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Stroud Brewery
Breweries and distilleries · Stroud
An organic brewery and taproom beside the Thames and Severn Canal at Thrupp, Stroud, founded in 2006, with wood-fired pizza, monthly brewery tours and tasting sessions.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
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Sudeley Castle and Gardens
Historic houses and heritage · Winchcombe
A castle on the edge of Winchcombe where Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's last queen, is buried, with gardens, a Tudor history and the Dent family's home.
Family-friendly · Walker-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
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The Dragonfly Maze
Family days out · Bourton-on-the-Water
A yew hedge maze on Rissington Road in Bourton-on-the-Water, with 14 clues to a rebus and a golden dragonfly at the centre designed by Kit Williams.
Family-friendly · Dog-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
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The Electric Picture House, Wotton-under-Edge
Historic houses and heritage · Wotton-under-Edge
A 100-seat cinema on Market Street, Wotton-under-Edge, opened in 1913 in the old Crown Inn and showing new films and live theatre, ballet and opera screenings.
Rainy days · Family-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
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The Model Village, Bourton-on-the-Water
Family days out · Bourton-on-the-Water
A one-ninth scale model of Bourton-on-the-Water as it was in the 1930s, itself listed Grade II, in the garden of the Old New Inn.
Family-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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The Oxfordshire Museum
Museums and galleries · Woodstock
The county museum in Woodstock, free, with galleries on Oxfordshire's history including Woodstock's gloves and cut steel, a garden and a café.
Rainy days · Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
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Uley Brewery
Breweries and distilleries · Uley
A tower brewery of 1833 built over a spring in the village of Uley, brewing Pigs Ear and Old Spot, with the Forge taproom open on Friday evenings.
Verified Oct 2026
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Uley Bury
Historic houses and heritage · Uley
One of the largest Iron Age hillforts in the Cotswolds, a plateau of about 23 hectares above Uley ringed by terraced ramparts, free to walk round on the rampart path with views to Cam Long Down and the Severn.
Walker-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Westonbirt, The National Arboretum
Parks and gardens · Tetbury
The National Arboretum near Tetbury: 15,000 trees, a 300m treetop walkway, dog-friendly Silk Wood and a peak season of autumn colour.
Dog-friendly · Family-friendly · Walker-friendly
Verified Oct 2026
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Whichford Pottery
Tours and experiences · Shipston-on-Stour
A working pottery in the village of Whichford, near Shipston-on-Stour, making hand-thrown frostproof terracotta flowerpots since 1976, with a stockyard, a shop, a café and courses.
Verified Oct 2026
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Winchcombe Museum
Museums and galleries · Winchcombe
A free, volunteer-led museum in Winchcombe's former Town Hall, with fragments of the Winchcombe meteorite, a rare pair of fifteenth-century town maces and the town's story from its trades and tanneries to the Arts and Crafts makers.
Rainy days · Car-free
Verified Oct 2026
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Winchcombe Pottery
Independent shops · Winchcombe
A working pottery at Greet, a mile north of Winchcombe, where Michael Cardew restarted pottery-making in 1926; its shop sells the wood-fired and soda-glazed tableware made on site.
Verified Oct 2026
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Woodchester Mansion
Historic houses and heritage · Minchinhampton
An unfinished Grade I house near Nympsfield, reached by minibus or a walk down a track, open Friday to Sunday from April to early November.
Family-friendly · Walker-friendly
Verified Nov 2026
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Woodchester Valley Vineyard
Tours and experiences · Nailsworth
A vineyard and winery in the Woodchester valley near Stroud and Nailsworth, with booked tours and tastings and a cellar door shop on the A46 open seven days a week.
Verified Nov 2026
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Wotton Heritage Centre
Museums and galleries · Wotton-under-Edge
The Wotton-under-Edge Historical Society's museum, archive and information point in the old fire station on The Chipping, open four days a week.
Rainy days · Walker-friendly
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.