Downton Abbey in the Cotswolds: Bampton, Cogges and Lacock

The Downton Abbey locations you can visit around the Cotswolds are Bampton in west Oxfordshire, which played the village of Downton from the first series in 2009; Cogges Manor Farm on the edge of Witney, which was Yew Tree Farm in series four to six; and Lacock in Wiltshire, where Church Street became a livestock show for series six and the streets held a royal parade for the first film. The abbey itself, Highclere Castle, is in Hampshire. Our two-day drive through the Cotswold film locations joins all three.

How we chose: a building is named here as a location only when the people who look after it say so. That means the Bampton Community Archive (opens in a new tab), which recorded the filming in its village for more than a decade; Cogges, which describes its Downton years on its own website; and the National Trust, which owns most of Lacock. Bampton and Lacock both lie just outside the Cotswolds National Landscape, Bampton on the flat land towards the Thames and Lacock a few miles south of the boundary, but both are built of the same stone and both are an easy day from the hills.

Bampton: the village of Downton

Bampton is Downton. The series is set in Yorkshire, but much of its village was filmed in Bampton's streets and buildings from 2009, around the church, the green and the old buildings at the centre, as the community archive puts it. The crew came back for more than a decade: the archive keeps photographs of a bitterly cold day of filming on 29 March 2015 and 185 photographs of outdoor filming in 2018.

The one building the archive names in so many words is the Old Grammar School on Church View, a small stone schoolroom built in the mid 1650s, which played the Downton Cottage Hospital. It is now the village library and the home of the archive, reopened in May 2022 after a restoration, and the archive opens daily from 10am to 4pm, though it warns it may sometimes not open. Its catalogue files the filming under St Mary's church, Churchgate House beside the churchyard and Church View, the lane between them.

The Downton Mile

The archive's Downton Mile is a walk of about a mile past the places that appeared, on a map drawn by Janet Westman. It marks the series' names on Bampton's streets: the church as St Michael and All Angels, Downton's church; Mrs Crawley's house; the cottage hospital; the Grantham Arms and the Dog and Duck, the village pubs of the series; the post office; Lamont's poultry merchant; and a wall it marks twice, without saying why. The money from the printed map supports the archive, and the latest version can be downloaded from its website.

The map places each name, but it does not say which house played which. Tourist-board accounts go further, naming Churchgate House as the outside of Isobel Crawley's house and St Mary's as the church where Lady Mary married Matthew; both sit where the map puts them, but we have not seen the archive or the production say so in words, so treat them as likely rather than certain. The walk is flat, on pavements and quiet lanes.

Visiting Bampton

Park in the Market Square, where parking is short-term, up to four hours, or in Church Close beside the church, which usually has space. Do not try Church View: it is too narrow to park in, and the houses along it are lived in, so look from the lane. Coaches set down in the square. The public toilets are in the Town Hall on the square.

Without a car, the 19 bus runs between Witney and Carterton through Bampton, Monday to Saturday. The Grantham Arms is a name on a map, so for a real drink go to the Morris Clown on the High Street, a single-bar free house that opens at 5pm on weekdays, 3pm on Saturdays and 2pm on Sundays and serves drinks only, or the Market Tavern on Bridge Street, which serves food. Come on the spring bank holiday Monday and the village's three morris sides dance from about 8.30am.

Cogges Manor Farm: Yew Tree Farm

Cogges Manor Farm, on the edge of Witney, played Yew Tree Farm, the home of the Drewe family where Lady Edith's daughter is brought up, and later the home of Mr Mason. Cogges says (opens in a new tab) its manor house and grounds were used extensively in series four to six, and that the manor house kitchen and a Victorian bedroom appear in the film Downton Abbey: A New Era. The farm also lists Colette (2019) and ITV's Arthur & George among its productions.

Inside the manor house is an exhibition about the filming, and the kitchen with its working Victorian range is the room to see. Cogges is otherwise a family day out, with farm animals, a walled garden, an orchard and a playground, and the parish church of St Mary's, Cogges next door. A day ticket was £12 for an adult and £9 for a child in 2026, with a family ticket at £41.

Check before you go in winter. From 2 November 2026 the farm opens from 9.30am to 1pm on a cheaper grounds-only ticket, £7.50 for an adult, and the manor house is shut until Christmas, when it reopens on weekends from 5 December and daily from 21 to 23 December. If the Downton rooms are the reason for the trip, come in the open season.

The free car park is on Cogges Hill Road, a short signed walk from the entrance, with Blue Badge spaces at the end of Church Lane. The S1, S2 and S7 buses stop at the top of Church Lane, and Witney's Market Square is about ten minutes' walk away by the Windrush. The loop from Witney to Witney Lake and Cogges is an easy hour and a quarter on the flat.

Lacock: the livestock show and the royal parade

Lacock has been in Downton Abbey twice, the National Trust says (opens in a new tab). In February 2015, for the second episode of series six, Church Street was turned into a 1920s livestock show, with sheep, pigs and a longhorn bull weighing a tonne among the extras; a volunteer from the abbey, cast as a farmer, had dirt painted on to the backs of his hands. In September 2018 the crew returned for the first film, and the village streets held the royal parade for the King and Queen's visit, with 350 extras, some of them villagers, 80 soldiers on horseback and a royal carriage.

The Trust says Lacock suits period filming because its streets are free of satellite dishes and overhead cables. Park in the Trust's Hither Way car park, £5 a day for non-members in 2026, because there is no parking in the village streets, or come on the X34 bus from Chippenham. Church Street runs past St Cyriac's church to the abbey gates, and the George Inn and the Red Lion feed you afterwards. Our story on Pride and Prejudice at Lacock covers the village's longer screen career.

Highclere, Basildon and the houses that are not here

The abbey is Highclere Castle, south of Newbury in Hampshire, and it is not a Cotswold location, whatever a coach itinerary implies. The Crawleys' London home, Grantham House, was Basildon Park in Berkshire, whose reception rooms, the National Trust says (opens in a new tab), also appear in the third film, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, with Claydon House in Buckinghamshire as Petersfield House. All three make a day trip of their own from the Oxfordshire Cotswolds rather than a stop on a Cotswold tour.

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Myths and half-truths

The Swan at Swinbrook is in Downton. Tourist-board and press accounts say Lady Sybil and Branson stopped at the Swan Inn at Swinbrook on their attempt to elope in series two. The inn's own pages do not mention it, though its website carries a 2014 Glamour review that does, so we list it as reported. It is worth the trip in any case: the Mitford sisters are remembered at St Mary's church, where four of them are buried, and the walk to Fulbrook and Widford starts at the door.

You can have a pint in the Grantham Arms. It is the series' pub, and the map shows where it was set, but it is not a pub you can walk into. Bampton's real pubs are named above.

Every cottage on Church View played a named character's home. The archive's map and catalogue name the lane and its buildings; the details you will read online about whose cottage was whose come from fan and tourist pages, not from the archive or the production.

Be a good visitor

Bampton is a working village, not a film set, and Church View is a lane of homes. Keep to the pavements on the Downton Mile, leave front gardens and doorsteps out of your photographs, and park in the square rather than the lanes. Buying the map from the archive, or a coffee in the village, is how a visit here pays its way.