The Cotswolds in May

May is the Cotswolds at their best on balance: the gardens in flower, the woods in new leaf, the last bluebells and the month's crowd of customs, with the hottest weeks and the school summer holidays still to come. The Met Office's averages for Little Rissington (opens in a new tab) for 1991 to 2020 give a high of 16°C and a low of 7°C, 66mm of rain on 10 days and six and a half hours of sunshine a day, though a late frost can still catch the high wolds. The light is long: the sun sets at about 8.30pm on 1 May and after 9pm by the end, and the day grows from just under 15 hours of daylight to more than 16. Two bank holidays and the school half term bring the crowds, and on the weekdays between them the villages are calm.

The averages are for the wolds above Bourton-on-the-Water. The vale is warmer. Everything in May is busier at weekends than in April, so the plan that works is a weekday walk and a weekend custom.

What is in flower in May

The last bluebells, then the gardens. The bluebell woods on the high north edge are May woods: Lynches Wood under Dover's Hill is full of bluebells in May, and Kiftsgate Court says its bluebell wood is a spectacular sight in early May. By the middle of the month most woods are going over. Our guide to bluebell woods has every wood.

The gardens come into their own. Hidcote and Kiftsgate, side by side above Chipping Campden, are both in flower, and Rodmarton Manor, the Arts and Crafts house near Tetbury, opens for the season at the start of May on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and bank holiday Mondays. Highgrove runs its champagne tea tours on selected dates from May to July, booked from March. The verges fill with cow parsley and the beech woods are in new leaf. Our gardens weekend from Chipping Campden gives Hidcote and Kiftsgate a day, with Batsford, Sezincote and Bourton House on the other.

What is on in May

May is the month of customs, and most fall on a rule rather than a fixed date. In the order they come:

• The Cheltenham Jazz Festival, six days around the early May bank holiday (29 April to 4 May in 2026), and the Lechlade Vintage Rally, vintage tractors, classic vehicles and miniature steam at Clanfield over the same weekend
• The Badminton Horse Trials, Wednesday to Sunday in early May, with cross-country on the Saturday and tickets sold in advance only
• The Randwick Wap: cheeses blessed and rolled round the churchyard on the first Sunday in May, then Wap Day, a procession and a fair, on the Saturday after
• Levellers Day in Burford, on a Saturday in May, remembering the soldiers shot in the churchyard in 1649
• The Stow Horse Fair, on a Thursday in May: the charter date was 12 May, but in 2026 the organisers said they would hold future fairs on the third Thursday of the month, so check the date before you go

Through the middle of the month the Chipping Campden Music Festival gives a fortnight of concerts in St James' Church. Bisley Well Dressing is on Ascension Day, the Thursday 39 days after Easter, which in most years is in May. The Winchcombe Walking Festival is a Friday-to-Sunday weekend of guided walks in mid to late May, booked in advance.

The spring bank holiday Monday, the last Monday in May, is the big day. In Tetbury the Woolsack Races send runners up and down Gumstool Hill, a 1 in 4 slope, with sacks of wool of about 27kg for the men and 16kg for the women.

Bampton's three morris sides dance through the village from about 8.30am at the Bampton Morris Day of Dance. At Cooper's Hill near Brockworth the cheese rolling goes ahead with no organiser, stewards or parking, and the local safety advisory group, made up of agencies including the emergency services, calls it unsafe: go at your own risk. In 2026 the steam railway held its spring gala over the same weekend.

On the Friday after the bank holiday, Robert Dover's Cotswold Olimpick Games are held on Dover's Hill from 4pm, with shin-kicking, the tug of war and running races, and after dark a torchlit procession, led in 2025 by a pipe band, goes down into the town's Square. The next day the town holds Scuttlebrook Wake, its street fair. When the bank holiday is late in the month, both fall in early June.

What is open and what is closed in May

Almost everything is open in May, and most places are on their summer hours. Rodmarton opens at the start of the month, the North Leigh Roman Villa near Woodstock opens its mosaic house on set weekends from late May (30 and 31 May in 2026), and the Slaughters Country Inn's Field Kitchen serves in the garden, weather permitting, from April to September. The things still to open are Stanway House, which opens on two afternoons a week from June to August, and Cotswold Lavender at Snowshill, which opens its fields in mid-June.

Two cautions. Bourton House Garden opens Tuesday to Friday and closes on public holidays. And Stow is at its busiest on Horse Fair day, so plan a Stow visit for another Thursday unless you are going to the fair. Each listing carries the latest dates we have. Check the place's own site as well.

Walks for May

May is the best walking month of the spring: the paths have dried, the woods are green and the grass has not yet grown over the stiles. The mud is mostly gone by the middle of the month, though the woods stay wet after rain.

• Chipping Campden and Dover's Hill, 4.5 miles (7.2km) from the Market Hall, with steep steps through Lynches Wood and muddy patches on the hillside track. The bluebells are best here in May
• Winchcombe and Belas Knap, 5.5 miles (8.8km) up the Cotswold Way and through the woods to the Neolithic long barrow, moderate, with two stiles
• Mickleton, Hidcote and Kiftsgate, 5 miles (8km) past Hidcote's garden and down the edge of Kiftsgate's grounds, with mud in the fields after rain
• Woodchester Park boathouse, 3.75 miles (6km) with no stiles round the National Trust's ponds, with dogs on a lead at all times, as the Trust asks, and on a short lead through the fields of grazing sheep and cattle

Keep dogs on a lead on the hills in May, when ground-nesting birds are breeding and lambs are still small.

Where to stay and eat in May

May suits a few days based in one place with its own custom, and the two bank holiday weekends need booking early, the spring one most of all. Chipping Campden has the music festival, the Olimpicks and Scuttlebrook Wake, with Hidcote and Kiftsgate a short drive away. The Noel Arms on the High Street has 27 rooms, and the Ebrington Arms, about 2 miles out, has five rooms and a terrace and garden. For the Woolsack Races, the Snooty Fox is on Tetbury's Market Place with 12 rooms.

For lunch after the Mickleton walk, the King's Arms on Mickleton's High Street has a garden. Our places to stay in Chipping Campden page has the rest of the town.

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School holidays and bank holidays in May

May has two bank holidays (opens in a new tab): the early May bank holiday on the first Monday, and the spring bank holiday on the last Monday. The school half term is the week of the spring bank holiday in Gloucestershire (opens in a new tab), and Oxfordshire's (opens in a new tab) falls the same week, so the last weekend of May and the week after it are the busiest days of the month.

On both bank holiday weekends Bourton-on-the-Water and Bibury are full from late morning to late afternoon, and Badminton's cross-country Saturday fills the roads of the south Cotswolds. The quiet weeks are the second and third, after the early bank holiday and before half term, and a weekday then is one of the best days of the year to be here. Our guide to the Cotswolds without the crowds has the busy hours and the alternatives.

If you only have a day in May

Choose the Friday after the spring bank holiday and spend it in Chipping Campden (the Games date is confirmed by the organisers each year). Walk the Dover's Hill loop in the morning, have a late lunch in the town and a look in St James' Church, then go back up Dover's Hill for the Olimpick Games, which start at 4pm, and walk down with the torchlit procession after dark.

On a Monday to Thursday in the middle of the month, do Hidcote in the morning, Kiftsgate next door when it opens at noon (in 2026 it opened Sunday to Thursday in May, closed on Fridays and Saturdays), and the Mickleton walk between them. Our guide to when to visit the Cotswolds has the rest of the year.