Self-guided walking holiday in the Cotswolds

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There’s nothing quite like a good walk with your bestie to boost your well-being. Clocking up steps whilst you chat on the trail is guaranteed to lift the mood and improve your health so – friends since school – Liz and I walk regularly on our home patch.  But we also love exploring an unfamiliar area on foot, so we booked a four-night summer break at Bourton-in-the-Water in the Cotswolds with walking specialists HF Holidays. 

Founded in 1913 as the Holiday Fellowship, this co-operative organisation is committed to making the great outdoors accessible to all, running 15 UK country house hotels and working with partner hotels across 40 countries.   Choose from guided group walking or do as we did and go self-guided with the help of their comprehensive route instructions and maps.

Harrington House

Liz and I had both visited the area with our families, but never together, nor on foot.  Bourton-on-the-Water is unforgettable for its pretty village centre where the river Windrush babbles beneath five low stone bridges, but sadly also for the crowds of tourists that pack the riverbanks in high season.  Selfie heaven for international visitors.

Stay at Harrington House however – this tranquil 18th century mansion tucked behind the main street – and you have Bourton to yourself at the beginning and end of the day.  The perfect time to enjoy this pretty but popular spot.  Bedrooms are spacious, en-suite and well-equipped with an optional supplement for a Premium room if you want more space and a few little extras. 

All HF Holidays breaks are full-board, whether guided or self-guided, and include cooked breakfast, picnic lunch, and a three-course evening meal.  Simply make your choices the evening before. Portions are generous and allergies well catered for, Liz having no trouble finding gluten-free fare amongst the imaginative dishes on offer.

Step Counting

All walks are graded, so independents simply browse the route cards in the Discovery Point and choose according to length, gradient and destination. We planned to set off straight after breakfast each day, finish our walk around lunchtime and then picnic over, set off to explore local attractions. 

Arriving on Monday afternoon, we chose a circular Tuesday route of 7.3 miles from the door, climbing steadily up through farmland to the pretty village of Clapton-on-the-Hill.  Bourton may have been busy, but away from the tourist hotspots you can easily have the Cotswold countryside to yourself.  We met just one man and his dog all morning, as we sat with our picnic on a churchyard bench in Little Rissington.  If the church is open, do go in to see the beautiful RAF Memorial window.

Tuesday saw us driving 12 miles to Broadway, where many of the stone properties lining the main street are home to antique dealers and art galleries.   Here we followed a 5-mile loop up a well-marked hillside track through sheep fields to Broadway Tower, an eccentric folly built in the late 18th century.  Follow the public footpath through the park and back to Broadway or do as we did and pause to buy a ticket to visit the furnished interior of the Tower and access the roof terrace, officially the highest point in the Cotswolds.

For our third route, we walked from the front door again, this time to the villages of Upper and Lower Slaughter across pretty farmland footpaths.  Both are popular with visitors, so we set off early to enjoy them at their most tranquil, picnicking beside the Windrush before an afternoon of exploration on four wheels.

Out and About

Both members of the National Trust, Liz and I enjoyed the chance to visit four contrasting properties, before, during and after our stay at Harrington House. First, the stunning Arts and Crafts inspired gardens at Hidcote near Chipping Camden, and Snowshill, crammed with an eclectic mix of items bought by early 20th century collector, Charles Wade.  Chastleton near Stow-on-the-Wold proved a fascinating example of a once wealthy Jacobean property, little changed across the centuries as family fortunes changed. 

And finally, we discovered Chedworth Roman Villa, with its extensive remains and exquisite mosaics set in a secluded valley. 

For a modest village of barely 2,000 inhabitants, bustling Stow-on-the-Wold – just 4 miles from Bourton – boasts a surprising amount of retail temptation from fashion boutiques and shoe shops, to cook shops and interior décor.  Look out too for the churchyard memorial to those lost in the Battle of Stow in 1646 during the English Civil War.

And no visit to the area is ever complete for me without revisiting Adlestrop, immortalised in one of my favourite poems about a train making an unscheduled stop at the village station in 1914.  In just 16 lines, poet Edward Thomas evokes all the magic of the Cotswold countryside in June, the wild flowers, the haycocks, and birdsong from ‘all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire’.   

The station is long gone, but the quaint cottages and traditional churchyard remain, just as the memory of Cotswold trails stayed with us long after our June walks were over.  Forty miles clocked up and 90,000 steps, with a wealth of Best Buddy chats to push our wellbeing off the scale.  Mission well and truly accomplished.

More Information:

• Guided and self-guided walking tours from www.hfholidays.co.uk.
• Heritage properties, visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk.  
• General tourist information. www.cotswolds.com 

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