Parking in the Cotswolds

Parking is the one thing the famous Cotswold villages do badly, and the fix is timing. The busy car parks on this page are easiest early in the morning and hardest from late morning on a summer weekend; the councils have made mornings cheap (Bourton's Rissington Road has been free before 10am since 10 April 2026, with charges from 10am to 8pm) and the afternoons expensive. Bibury has no public car park at all, the Slaughters have none, and Castle Combe keeps its car park at the top of the hill so that the village stays empty of cars. Where there is a bus, the buses page has the times. Charges are the councils' published tariffs on 25 October 2026 and almost everywhere is card or app only: no Cotswold District Council car park takes cash.

Bourton-on-the-Water

Park at Rissington Road (GL54 2BN), Cotswold District Council's car park five minutes' walk from the river in Bourton-on-the-Water, and arrive before 10am, when it is free. From 10am to 8pm every day it is £4.40 for two hours, £5.50 for three, £7.30 for five and £10.60 for ten (2026), paid by card at the machine or by PayByPhone (location 804760); Blue Badge holders park free for up to ten hours. It has 192 bays, nine for Blue Badges, eight 7kW chargers and the village's public toilets (50p, with an accessible toilet and baby change). Sixty pence of every stay (raised from 50p in 2025) is the village's tourism levy, which the district council has collected since March 2021 and spends on a village warden, extra parking enforcement and local projects (Cotswold District Council, where to park (opens in a new tab)).

On a summer weekend or bank holiday, when the county council puts visitors at around 10,000 a day, Rissington Road fills quickly, so come early. The private Station Road car park closed to coaches at the end of 2023 and there is no coach parking in the village; coaches drop off at a two-coach bay on Meadow Way, 9am to 4pm, five minutes only and no return within 30 minutes, under an experimental traffic order. A county council review of Bourton's parking ran a survey to 6 September 2026 and may change this. The bus is the 801 from Moreton-in-Marsh station, hourly, every day. If the car park is full, drive on to Naunton, ten minutes up the Windrush, which is quieter and has a pub. Operators will find the set-down rules village by village in coaches and groups in the Cotswolds.

Bibury

There is no public car park in Bibury. The trout farm has a car park at £10 (2026), entered from the rear while the front road is closed, as the farm's site said when we checked on 27 October 2026. The Street, the lane past Arlington Row and the verges by the church are marked and enforced: 651 penalty notices were issued in 2025 against 28 in 2019, at £70 (£35 within two weeks). Do not leave a car on The Street, by the bridge or in the lane to Arlington Row: all of it is enforced.

Coaches have had no parking in the village since a trial that began in May 2025: the central coach bays are gone and a bus-stop clearway in the centre takes two coaches for ten minutes to set down and pick up. Gloucestershire County Council has set aside £175,000 for the next stage, consulted on from November to December 2025: the coach bays removed for good, pay-and-display along The Street with resident exemptions, longer yellow lines, a loading bay and disabled bays, raised kerbs and seating in the centre. The council said the measures could be in by early summer 2026 if approved; when we checked on 27 October 2026 its page did not say they were in force, so checkthe Bibury traffic management plan (opens in a new tab) before you drive. The county council puts a peak weekend at up to 20,000 visitors. The bus is the 855 from Cirencester or Bourton, Monday to Saturday, and the quieter village is Coln St Aldwyns, two miles down the Coln.

Castle Combe

Park at the visitor car park on Dunns Lane in Upper Castle Combe, at the top of the hill, and walk the half mile down into Castle Combe. It is Wiltshire Council's pay and display: 50p for an hour, £1.30 for two, £2.40 for three and £6.60 all day, with coach bays at £5.60 for three hours, on the tariff the council published for 2026 and holds until 31 August 2028. There is no parking in the village itself: the street from the Market Cross to the bridge is too narrow to park in and is patrolled, and the parish council says over 350 cars were booked for illegal parking in the village in summer 2025, mostly at weekends and on bank holidays. Coaches may not enter the village. On a bank holiday the parish council says the car park is likely to be full with no alternative, and it often fills quickly; the quiet times are weekdays, early mornings, late afternoons, spring and autumn, and winter (Castle Combe Parish Council (opens in a new tab)). The bus is Faresaver's 95 from Chippenham, a handful of times a day from Monday to Saturday.

Broadway

Wychavon District Council runs Broadway's car parks and charges 8am to 6pm every day, bank holidays included. Church Close off the High Street (WR12 7AH) is the short-stay one: 146 bays, 30 minutes 50p, an hour £1, two hours £2 and four hours £3 (2026), with ten Blue Badge bays, toilets, baby change and a Changing Places toilet. Milestone Ground (WR12 7HA, 102 bays, six coach bays) and Shear House (WR12 7ET) are long stay at £1 an hour up to £4 for ten hours.Broadway Tower has its own car park on the A44 (WR12 7LB), £3 for up to four hours and £6 all day, gates locked at 5.15pm. Church Close is the one that fills first on a summer weekend; Milestone Ground is a few minutes further. The buses are the 606 from Cheltenham or Chipping Campden, Monday to Saturday, and Stagecoach's 1 from Moreton station, three times a day (Wychavon car parks (opens in a new tab)).

Stow-on-the-Wold

The Square in Stow-on-the-Wold has a little short-stay parking that goes early at weekends, so use the two car parks on the edge of the town. Maugersbury Road (GL54 1HH), Cotswold District Council: 62 bays, four 7kW chargers and five coach bays, charged 8am to 6pm Monday to Saturday and 10am to 6pm on Sundays at the same tariff as Bourton, £4.40 for two hours to £10.60 for ten (2026), with no shorter ticket since the half-hour and one-hour charges were removed on 10 April 2026; Blue Badge free; motorhomes may use a coach bay but not stay overnight. The council plans to add a tourism levy here, as at Bourton, under its parking strategy to 2028, with no start date given when we checked on 27 October 2026. Fosseway car park by Tesco (GL54 1BX) is free, with 98 bays and three for Blue Badges, and a short walk up to the Square. The toilets are on the Square, 50p. The bus is the 801, hourly every day, stopping at the library. Public toilets in the Cotswolds lists every council block with its charge and hours.

The Slaughters

Neither Lower Slaughter nor Upper Slaughter has a public car park or a public toilet. There is almost no roadside space in either village, and the lanes are too narrow for a verge. A 1995 traffic order bars coaches and minibuses of nine seats or more from Lower Slaughter except local buses and hotel drop-offs. Park at Rissington Road in Bourton and walk in along the Windrush, a mile and a half on a level path, which is also the best way to see the villages.

Chipping Campden and Burford

In Chipping Campden the Market Square car park (GL55 6AW) is small, 32 bays, and not the council's own: 7am to 7pm daily, the first 20 minutes free, then £1 an hour and £2 for two (2026), card or PayByPhone (808093), no cash, and Blue Badge holders pay here. For a longer stay use the free bays at Back Ends, behind the High Street; Court Barn also points visitors to the school car park on Cidermill Lane at weekends and in the school holidays. The toilets are on Sheep Street, 50p.

Burford is free. West Oxfordshire District Council's Guildenford car park (OX18 4SE), off Church Lane at the bottom of the hill, has 166 bays, 97 of them for up to four hours and 64 for up to ten since 1 February 2026, with three Blue Badge bays and two parent and child bays, and toilets (20p in coins, 7.30am to 7.30pm). The High Street's angled bays are free too, for a limited stay. Witney and Woodstock council car parks are also free (West Oxfordshire District Council (opens in a new tab)).

Lacock, Painswick and Cirencester

The National Trust's Hither Way car park is the only place to park for Lacock and the abbey: a short walk from the village, free for members, who check in at the machine or with the JustPark app, and £5 a day for everyone else (2026). In November it opens from 10am to 4pm, or until dusk if that is earlier. There is little parking in the village streets. The bus is Faresaver's X34 from Chippenham, about every half hour on weekdays and nine times on Sundays.

Painswick's car park is Stamages Lane (GL6 6UT), Stroud District Council: 56 bays, two for Blue Badges, four charging bays and a 23-hour maximum stay, with no return within an hour. The council's parking page listed no charge for it when we checked on 27 October 2026. The Rococo Garden has free parking for its visitors (book ahead in the snowdrop season). The bus is Stagecoach's 66 from Stroud, ten minutes, about hourly Monday to Saturday and two-hourly on Sundays. Cirencester has ten council car parks open to the public and rarely runs out: Waterloo (GL7 2PY, 237 bays) by the Abbey Grounds, £2 an hour, £3.80 for two hours and £10 for ten, and the long-stay Beeches (GL7 1BW, with two 50kW rapid chargers), £2 an hour or £3.40 for ten hours (2026), are the two for visitors, both charged 8am to 6pm (10am on Sundays) and Blue Badge free; Queen Street's 16 bays are free. Charging an electric car in the Cotswolds has every council charger and the rapids on the A40 and A429.