The Cotswolds in January

January is the quietest month in the Cotswolds and the coldest. On the wolds the Met Office's averages for Little Rissington (opens in a new tab) give a high of 6.5°C and a low of about 1°C, rain on 13 days and 78mm in all, and about two hours of sunshine a day. The sun rises at about 8.15am and sets just after 4pm on New Year's Day, and by the end of the month it rises about 25 minutes earlier and sets about 45 minutes later. The schools go back in the first week, and from then until half term in February the famous villages are as empty as they ever are. It is the month for a frosty walk, a fire in a pub and the first snowdrops in the second half of the month.

The figures are 30-year averages for a station on the high ground above Bourton-on-the-Water, so the vale below is a degree or so milder. A clear, still January day after a frost gives the longest views of the year from the escarpment. A wet one gives mud, and most January days give some of both.

What is in flower in January

Snowdrops, from the second half of the month. A few flower earlier in churchyards and along stream banks in a mild winter, and the snowdrop gardens open for them from the middle of the month to the last weekend. Our guide to snowdrops in the Cotswolds has every garden in detail.

Colesbourne Park, between Cheltenham and Cirencester, opens its collection of about 350 varieties on Saturdays and Sundays from the last weekend of January, by advance ticket only. Painswick Rococo Garden opens for its snowdrop season in the middle of January and says they are often at their best in mid to late February, depending on the weather. Tickets must be booked in advance in the season, so check its site for this year's dates. Batsford Arboretum near Moreton-in-Marsh is open every day but Christmas Day, and says early snowdrops and winter aconites may be seen in winter. Cerney House Gardens at North Cerney opens every day but one in the year, usually with no need to book, until dusk in winter.

Away from the gardens the hedges are bare and the fields brown, and the colour is in the stone: low sun on a Cotswold wall at three in the afternoon is the January picture.

What is on in January

The year starts at the races and in the orchards. New Year's Day racing at Cheltenham is an afternoon of jump racing under Cleeve Hill on 1 January. It sold out for the first time on New Year's Day 2026, with a record crowd of 44,151, so buy tickets ahead.

Wassailing is the January custom. Wassails are held around Twelfth Night, 5 or 6 January, or on Old Twelfth Night, 17 January, and some run on into February. Each sets its date in the new year, so look at the organisers' sites from December. Our story on wassailing explains the Gloucestershire carol and where to find one. Stroud's own town wassail has been held on a Saturday in February at the Museum in the Park in recent years, and each year's date is announced by the museum.

The weekly markets carry on through the month:

• Stroud Farmers' Market, every Saturday, 9am to 2pm
• Cirencester Charter Market every Monday and Friday, and the farmers' market on the second and fourth Saturdays
• Moreton-in-Marsh Tuesday Market, every Tuesday
• Witney Charter Market, every Thursday and Saturday
• Stow Farmers' Market, which in January runs on the last Thursday only

Christmas at Blenheim Palace, the light trail at Woodstock, runs into the first days of January, a few days after the Westonbirt and Sudeley light trails have closed.

What is open and what is closed in January

Most of the paid gardens and many of the houses are shut in January, and the ones that open keep winter hours. The countryside, the churches, the market towns and the pubs are all open, and that is where the month is.

Open all month are Westonbirt, the National Arboretum, every day but Christmas Day, Batsford and Cerney House. Shut are Sezincote, from December to February, Bourton House Garden, which closes in mid-October and reopens in the spring, and Sudeley Castle, which reopens in mid-March. The Cotswold Farm Park takes a winter break after Christmas and reopens in February, when its live lambing returns, so check the date, and the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway runs festive steam specials into the first days of January and then no more trains for the rest of January or February.

Others close for part of the month. Stroud's Museum in the Park closes just before Christmas and reopens in the second half of January. The Cotswold Wildlife Park near Burford closes on weekdays for about a month from the first week of January and opens at weekends only. Burford's Tolsey Museum is shut from January to March, and the Old Prison café at Northleach has closed in January and February in past winters, according to the walk leaflet. Opening days change from year to year, so each listing carries the latest dates we have. Check it, and the place's own site, before you drive.

Winter walks for January

Choose a walk that keeps to high, firm ground or to estate drives. The field paths in the valleys are at their muddiest from December to March, and the river meadows of the Windrush and the Evenlode flood. The commons and the parkland drain.

• Cirencester Park and Stratton, 5 miles (8km), easy, with a mile on the Broad Ride to Pope's Seat, with a Day Pass for the park, valid 10am to 5pm with last entry at 4.30pm
• Cleeve Common and Cleeve Cloud, 4 miles, on the highest ground in the Cotswolds. Exposed in wind and icy in winter, so check the forecast
• Rodborough Common and the Fort, 2 miles, nearly level, up to Rodborough Fort above Stroud. Muddy only after rain
• Northleach, Hampnett and the Saltway, 4.5 miles, easy and stile-free, past a painted Norman church

Wear boots on any of them, and take a torch in your bag: by 4pm in early January the light is going, and a walk that starts after lunch should be a short one. Our best viewpoints guide has the hills to climb on a clear day.

Where to stay and eat in January

January suits a pub with rooms and a fire: a two-night stay, a walk from the door and dinner without booking weeks ahead. Outside New Year it is the easiest month of the year to find a room at short notice. For two days by car, our winter weekend in Broadway and the north is built for the short days.

The Lamb Inn on Sheep Street in Burford has open fires in the bar and dogs welcome. The Eight Bells in Chipping Campden has six rooms above a fourteenth-century pub with fires, by St James's Church. For lunch after a walk above Stroud, the Woolpack at Slad, Laurie Lee's local, has a fireside bar and a snug. Our guide to pubs with rooms in the Cotswolds has the rest, and several of the pubs we list close on Mondays and Tuesdays, so check the day before you set off.

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School holidays and bank holidays in January

New Year's Day is the one bank holiday (opens in a new tab), moving to the next weekday when 1 January falls on a weekend. The Christmas school holidays end in the first week: Gloucestershire's schools (opens in a new tab) go back on the first Monday of January or close to it. Oxfordshire and Wiltshire publish their own dates, and academies can set theirs.

After that there are no school holidays until the February half term, which makes the second, third and fourth weeks of January the quietest of the whole year. The only crowds are at the racecourse on New Year's Day and at Colesbourne on its first snowdrop weekend (opens in a new tab), when the advance tickets are what keep the numbers down. Our guide to the Cotswolds without the crowds has the hours to avoid the rest of the year.

If you only have a day in January

Make it a Saturday in the last week of the month. Book Colesbourne for the 11am opening and spend the morning in the snowdrops, then drive 10 minutes down the Churn valley to the Bathurst Arms at North Cerney for lunch. In the afternoon walk the Broad Ride in Cirencester Park while there is light, and be back in Cirencester for tea as the light goes.

If the snowdrops are not yet out, go high instead: Cleeve Common in the morning frost, lunch in Winchcombe, and the low sun on the escarpment from the top of the common before dusk. Our guide to when to visit the Cotswolds has the rest of the year month by month.