The best pubs in the Cotswolds

The best pubs in the Cotswolds are its village inns: the White Hart at Castle Combe and the George at Lacock, both medieval; the White Horse on the green at Biddestone; the Farmers Arms at Guiting Power; the Trout at Lechlade by the Thames; the Swan at Swinbrook on the Windrush; and the inns round Kingham, the King's Head at Bledington, the Kingham Plough and the Wild Rabbit. Many let rooms, most welcome dogs, and many sit at the start or end of a good walk.

How we chose: these are pubs from our own listings, chosen for their building, their setting and what they serve, with facts from each pub's own information checked in October 2026. Village pubs keep short hours and many close one or two days a week, so check before you walk to one. For the breweries behind the beer, Donnington, Hook Norton, Arkell's and Uley, see our story on Cotswold pubs and their breweries.

What makes a good Cotswold pub?

A good Cotswold pub is an old stone building in the middle of its village, with a fire in winter, a garden in summer, local ale and food cooked on the premises, and a footpath from the door. The oldest are medieval; many were coaching inns on the roads over the wolds. The best of them still serve the village as well as visitors, with a quiz night, a skittle alley or a curry night in the week.

Old village inns

The White Hart, Castle Combe. A fourteenth-century Wadworth pub on The Street in Castle Combe, open from 9am for pastries and coffee, then pub classics until the evening, and dog friendly. The kitchen closes at 6pm on Sundays. Come in on the walk from Ford, which reaches the village through the woods of the By Brook.

The George Inn, Lacock. A Wadworth pub on West Street in Lacock that dates itself to around 1361, with exposed beams and a medieval fireplace. The George serves food from midday to 8pm every day, has a play area and a beer garden, and welcomes dogs. Across the village, the Red Lion, in a Georgian building on the High Street, has five rooms upstairs.

The Eight Bells, Chipping Campden. Built in the fourteenth century to house the masons working on St James's, and rebuilt in the seventeenth from most of the old stone and timber. The Eight Bells has open fires, real ale and six rooms, and dogs are welcome in the main bar.

The Lion Inn, Winchcombe. A restored fifteenth-century coaching inn on North Street, a Butcombe inn, where dogs are welcome throughout the pub and in all nine rooms. The Lion is on the Cotswold Way, a short walk from Sudeley Castle. Winchcombe is about 8km (5 miles) from Cheltenham Racecourse, so the Lion is also a quieter base for the Cheltenham Festival in March.

Pubs on the village green

The White Horse, Biddestone. The pub on the green at Biddestone, looking over the green and pond, with stone walls, low ceilings and an inglenook. The White Horse keeps water bowls and treats for dogs, and has free parking on the green opposite; it is closed on Mondays and evenings-only from Tuesday to Thursday. The heritage trail starts at the village hall. It is the Sunday lunch stop on our South Cotswolds weekend, between Castle Combe and Lacock.

The Farmers Arms, Guiting Power. The village's Donnington pub, with a log burner, a large beer garden and a skittle alley. The Farmers Arms is the finish of the walk to Naunton and back; there is no food on Mondays except quiz nights. In the same village, the Hollow Bottom, which was Ye Olde Inn until the trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies and Raymond Mould bought it in 1996, is a racing pub with six rooms that all take dogs. At the end of July the Guiting Music Festival fills the village with ten days of concerts.

The King's Head, Bledington. A sixteenth-century stone inn on the green at Bledington, about 1.5km from Kingham, named the Good Pub Guide's Inn of the Year for 2020 (opens in a new tab), with St Leonard's a couple of minutes away. The King's Head has twelve rooms; dogs are welcome in the bar but not the bedrooms.

The Kingham Plough, Kingham. On the green in Kingham, open every day from 8.30am with an all-day bar menu, a fire inside and a terrace outside, and Kingham station within walking distance. The Kingham Plough has six rooms, two of them, in the annexe, for dogs, and dogs are welcome in the bar and on the terrace.

Riverside pubs in the Cotswolds

The Trout Inn, Lechlade. By St John's Lock, the first lock on the Thames, where Father Thames reclines. The Trout dates its life as an inn to 1472 and its name to 1704, by its own account; it has a riverside garden, a log fire in winter and fishing rights over two miles of the river, and it closes on Mondays. The flat 4.8km walk from Lechlade passes the door.

The Swan, Swinbrook. On the bank of the Windrush in the Mitfords' village, about 5km east of Burford, with rooms in its stables and a cottage. The Swan serves lunch and dinner every day; book ahead. The loop by Fulbrook and Widford starts at the door and passes St Mary's.

The Bathurst Arms, North Cerney. A pub with rooms on the River Churn about 8km north of Cirencester, with a stream by the front lawn and a beer garden. The Bathurst Arms serves food every day, until 5pm on Sundays.

The Old New Inn, Bourton-on-the-Water. A Grade II listed eighteenth-century inn near the Windrush, with the Model Village in its garden and Sunday lunch from midday to 4pm. The Old New Inn is in the middle of one of the busiest villages in the Cotswolds, so come early.

Pubs with rooms

A pub with rooms makes the easiest base for a walking weekend: dinner downstairs, the path from the door in the morning. Round Kingham, Daylesford runs the Wild Rabbit, cooking with produce from Daylesford's organic farm, the Fox at Lower Oddington, where dogs are welcome in every part of the pub, and the Three Horseshoes at Asthall, an eighteenth-century inn in the Windrush valley. At Nether Westcote the Feathered Nest, an old malt house, looks over the Evenlode valley, and at Ascott-under-Wychwood the Swan takes dogs in every bedroom.

In the Coln valley, the New Inn at Coln St Aldwyns, a sixteenth-century coaching inn, reopened in 2020, and across the river the Keepers Arms at Quenington is a family-run free house with log fires and four adults-only rooms. At Barnsley, near Cirencester, the Village Pub serves gravity-fed ales. Near Chipping Campden, the Ebrington Arms has a landscaped garden and five rooms.

Pubs on Cotswold walks

Many of the best walks in the Cotswolds are planned round a pub, and our guide to pub walks in the Cotswolds collects them. The Guiting Power and Naunton circuit, 10.1km, ends at the Farmers Arms. The walk from Ford to Castle Combe, 7.2km, runs from the White Hart at Ford to the White Hart in Castle Combe and back. The Kingscote, Ozleworth and Lasborough loop, 11.9km, starts and ends at the sixteenth-century Hunters Hall. For two days of them, our weekend of pub walks from Guiting Power starts from a pub with rooms in the village.

On the escarpment, the Stanton, Snowshill and the edge loop, 10.6km, finishes at the Mount Inn at the top of Stanton's street, and the Chipping Campden to Blockley circuit, 14.5km, passes close to the Great Western Arms, where walkers may leave the car in the car park.

The Butchers Arms at Sheepscombe, near Painswick, keeps a leaflet of walks from the door at the bar.

The Cotswolds Info newsletter

Events, new places and the best of the season, about once a month. Unsubscribe at any time.

Leave this field blank

Your name

Your email address

Yes, send me the Cotswolds Info newsletter

Sign me up

Pubs with a view

West of the wolds, the Five Valleys pubs look out over steep green country. The Butchers Arms is a free house in the Sheepscombe valley, about 2.5km from Painswick, in Cider with Rosie country: Laurie Lee lived locally and drank here. At Randwick, about 2.5km from Stroud, the Vine Tree has a tiered garden looking over Stroud and the valleys, a chef who was Cotswold Life's chef of the year in 2025 (opens in a new tab), and the Cotswold Way through the village. On Rodborough Common, the Bear of Rodborough has walks from the door, and on Minchinhampton Common the Old Lodge, once the golf clubhouse, serves food every day from breakfast, on a common grazed by the commoners' cattle in summer. AtAmberley, the Amberley Inn looks over the Woodchester valley. At Littleworth, on the edge of Minchinhampton Common, the Black Horse has a conservatory looking across the valley and welcomes children, dogs and muddy boots.

Dog-friendly pubs in the Cotswolds

Most Cotswold pubs welcome dogs in the bar, and many in the bedrooms too. Among those that make a point of it are the White Horse at Biddestone, with water bowls and treats; the Cat and Custard Pot at Shipton Moyne, where dogs are welcome in every part of the pub; the Fox at Lower Oddington; the Lion at Winchcombe; and the Bell at Selsley, where dogs are welcome everywhere, bedrooms included. Keep dogs on leads in the bar and near livestock on the walk there; our guide to the Cotswolds with a dog has the rules.

Town pubs worth knowing

In the towns, the Prince Albert at the top of Rodborough Hill in Stroud, licensed before 1869, is a music pub with family-friendly matinee gigs. The Three Cups in Malmesbury has a meat-free kitchen named the best vegan pub in Wiltshire by Vegan Food and Living (opens in a new tab). In Tetbury the Royal Oak, a late eighteenth-century free house, reopened in 2013 after restoration, and in Toddington the Pheasant pours Donnington ales beside the steam railway's station. The Royal Oak sits at the foot of Gumstool Hill, the course of the Tetbury Woolsack Races, run on the late May bank holiday Monday.