Strange Things in the Cotswolds

Customs, legends, ghosts and odd corners of history: the strange side of the Cotswolds, with the record and the legend kept apart.

The St James wall paintings at Stoke Orchard

Story · Strange Things · 4 minute read

A small church in the vale below Cleeve Hill holds 28 scenes from the life of St James, painted around 1200, the only such cycle in England.
Three dooms at Minster Lovell Hall

Story · Strange Things · 5 minute read

The ruined hall on the Windrush at Minster Lovell, the lord who vanished after the battle of Stoke, a skeleton said to sit at a table, and a bride in a chest.
Two sundials in Woodstock

Story · Strange Things · 3 minute read

High on Woodstock's church and in a niche on its Town Hall are two near-twin sundials, one of which writes seven as IIV and eight as IIIV.
Wassailing in Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds

Story · Strange Things · 5 minute read

The midwinter custom of wassailing: the Gloucestershire Wassail carol, a song collected at Buckland in 1909, and where to join a wassail near the Cotswolds today.
Well dressing at Bisley

Story · Strange Things · 4 minute read

Every Ascension Day the children of Bisley carry flower-covered letters to the village wells, a custom begun when Thomas Keble restored them in 1863.
Wife selling in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds

Story · Strange Things · 5 minute read

For a century and more, some English couples ended their marriages with a public sale in the market. The newspapers record cases at Oxford, Banbury and Witney.

Customs you can still see

The Cotswolds keep some of England's oddest customs. Runners chase a cheese down Cooper's Hill and carry woolsacks up a hill in Tetbury. Bisley's children dress the village wells on Ascension Day, Avening carries a pig's head in procession, and the Marshfield mummers fight and die in the street every Boxing Day. In midwinter there is wassailing.

Legends and the record

We like a good legend, but we keep it apart from the facts. Read about the man who came back from the dead in Chipping Campden, the lost lord of Minster Lovell, the ghost of Charles I, the Templars and Hospitallers, and whether Cotswold customs are pagan at all. On the darker side of the record are wife sales in the Oxfordshire market towns, the lovers of Stanton Harcourt, Robert Catesby and Chastleton and ley lines at the Rollright Stones.

Odd corners

A sundial in Woodstock that writes seven as IIV, a jester's tomb at Berkeley, a monk who flew from Malmesbury Abbey, wall paintings of St James at Stoke Orchard, and the fire that gave T. S. Eliot Burnt Norton.

Where to see them

Many of these places are free. The wells at Bisley are on Wells Road, Minster Lovell Hall is open in daylight, Belas Knap is a steep climb of just over half a mile from a small lay-by on the lane above Winchcombe, and the St James paintings are in the small church at Stoke Orchard, which has no regular opening times but holds a service at 9.30am on the second and fourth Sundays of the month; otherwise check with the parish before you make a special trip. At Malmesbury, the Athelstan Museum tells the story of Eilmer, the monk who flew. The Rollright Stones, with their legend of a king and his knights turned to stone, ask a small fee.

How we tell these stories

Every Strange Things story says what is on record, with its source, and where the legend begins. Where a famous tale turns out to have no evidence, such as the Tolkien door at Stow or Morris's line about Bibury, we say so, and we drop stories we cannot stand behind.

Strange places to visit

Where the stories happened, and what you can see there now.

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.
Belas Knap Long Barrow

Historic houses and heritage · Winchcombe

A Neolithic long barrow on the hill above Winchcombe, with a false entrance and side chambers, free to visit and on the Cotswold Way.

Walker-friendly

Verified Oct 2026
Minster Lovell Hall and Dovecote

Historic houses and heritage · Witney

The ruins of a fifteenth-century manor house by the River Windrush between Burford and Witney, with a round dovecote, free to visit in daylight.

Dog-friendly · Walker-friendly

Verified Oct 2026
Court House, Painswick

Sight · Historic building · Painswick

The Court House is a gabled stone manor house of 1604 on Hale Lane, beside Painswick churchyard, with a panelled court room and a bedroom named after Charles I. Listed Grade I, it is a private home seen from the lane and the churchyard.
St Mary Magdalene, Woodstock

Sight · Church · Woodstock

St Mary Magdalene is Woodstock's church on Park Street, founded with the twelfth-century town and long a chapel of Bladon, with a Norman zigzag doorway, a classical tower of 1784 to 1786 with chimes of 1792 made to play tunes, and a sundial with odd numerals. Grade II*.
Knights Hospitallers' Gateway, Quenington

Sight · Historic building · Cirencester and the Coln Valley

The fourteenth-century gatehouse of the preceptory the Knights Hospitallers founded at Quenington in about 1193, partly rebuilt in the early sixteenth century, beside St Swithin's church. Grade I; on private land, seen from Church Road.