Cotswold pubs and the breweries behind them

A Cotswold pub is often tied to one of a handful of family brewers that have made beer in or near the hills since the nineteenth century, and the oldest inns on the coaching roads go back further still. Knowing the brewer tells you a good deal about the beer, and the history of the building tells you the rest. Our guide to food and drink in the Cotswolds covers the farm shops, markets and restaurants.

Donnington, the brewery in a mill

Donnington Brewery, near Stow-on-the-Wold, is the most Cotswold of them. Thomas Arkell bought a thirteenth-century watermill there in 1827, Richard Iles Arkell began brewing in it in 1865, and the Arkell family still own it, with a small estate of about 20 pubs.

Among them are the Black Horse at Naunton, a dog-friendly pub with a garden, and the Mount Inn at the top of the village street in Stanton. The Farmers Arms at Guiting Power, the Coach and Horses at Longborough and the Fox at Broadwell are Donnington pubs too, and the White Bear at Shipston-on-Stour is owned by the brewery too. The Pheasant Inn at Toddington, near Winchcombe, serves Donnington ales too. On Moreton-in-Marsh High Street, the Black Bear is a Donnington town pub with a restaurant of its own.

Hook Norton, Arkell's and Wadworth

Hook Norton Brewery has brewed since 1849, and its Victorian tower brewery of about 1898 keeps the steam engine installed in 1899, which still drives the mill and mashing machinery when it runs for an hour on the first Sunday of each month. The family still run it, its three shire horses still deliver beer by dray in the village, and its pubs include the Great Western Arms at Blockley. Tours end with a tasting and must be booked (opens in a new tab); the tour climbs more than 100 open steps, and the Hooky Experience tells the brewery's story without stairs. The brewery also has a free museum in the old malt house, and its shop opens every day (8am to 6pm Monday to Saturday, 9am to 4pm on Sunday).

Arkell's of Swindon has been a family brewer since 1843 and is run today by Peter and James Arkell, who also own Donnington. It counts more than 80 pubs across Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Hampshire, and its Cotswold pubs includethe Kings Arms on the High Street at Malmesbury, the Priory Inn at Tetbury and the Bull at Fairford, an Arkell's house since 1973. Wadworth of Devizes (opens in a new tab), founded in 1875, runs the George Inn and the Red Lion at Lacock and the White Hart at Castle Combe.

The newer breweries

Uley Brewery works in the tower brewery Samuel Price built over the village's lower spring in 1833. Chas Wright revived it, its first pint was poured on 1 March 1985, and Martin Brooks has run it since the end of 2018. Its regular beers are Uley Bitter, Pigs Ear and Old Spot. The Woolpack at Slad, a seventeenth-century pub and Laurie Lee's local, keeps Uley Bitter and Pigs Ear as regulars.

Stroud Brewery was founded by Greg Pilley at Thrupp in 2006 and is organic and a B Corp, with a taproom by the canal. North Cotswold Brewery has brewed since 1999 at Ditchford Farm, Stretton-on-Fosse, on the Fosse Way between Moreton-in-Marsh and Shipston, with a shop and a bar.

The old coaching inns

The Lygon Arms at Broadway is an early seventeenth-century inn, listed Grade II*, restored early in the twentieth century, and an inn on the site was recorded as the White Hart in 1377. The Lamb at Burford is listed with its mounting block, an eighteenth-century front over sixteenth-century features. The White Hart Royal at Moreton-in-Marsh was a seventeenth-century coaching inn. The inn says Charles I sought refuge there twice during the Civil War, in 1644 and 1645; the story is told, not proved.

Two make bigger claims. The Porch House at Stow calls itself England's oldest inn, and the Old Bell, beside Malmesbury Abbey, says it is rumoured to be England's oldest hotel; its central range is probably monastic. Neither claim has been proved, so take them as the inns' own.

The Fleece at Bretforton

The Fleece Inn at Bretforton, at the edge of the Vale of Evesham, belongs to the National Trust. Historic England lists it as a farmhouse of probable mid-fifteenth-century origins, extended and remodelled in the seventeenth century and licensed as a pub from 1848. Lola Taplin, a descendant of the Byrd family who built it, left it to the Trust when she died in 1977, and it was the first pub the Trust took on. It keeps a collection of seventeenth-century pewter, was badly damaged by fire in February 2004 and reopened in May 2005, and CAMRA gives its interior three stars on the National Inventory. It holds an annual orchard wassail in January; check the date with the pub nearer the time.

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Village pubs with rooms

Many village pubs let rooms, which makes one an easy base for a walking weekend. The Three Horseshoes at Asthall, near Burford, one of the Daylesford Stays inns with six rooms, says its innkeepers from 1726 were farriers by trade. The Royal Oak at Tetbury, a late eighteenth-century free house, reopened in 2013 after restoration and has six rooms, three of them for dogs. Around Kingham, Daylesford runs the Wild Rabbit and the Fox at Oddington.

Choosing a pub

CAMRA's National Inventory (opens in a new tab) grades historic pub interiors from one to three stars, county by county, and an interior must be essentially unaltered for at least fifty years to qualify. Village pubs often keep short hours and some close one day a week, so check before you walk to one. Many welcome dogs in the bar. Our pub walks in the Cotswolds each start or finish at one. Our guide to the best pubs in the Cotswolds picks the village inns, riverside pubs and pubs with rooms worth the journey.