Andrew Swift explores a much-overlooked town in the Cotswolds, treading its narrow streets to uncover its charm and tell the story of this hidden gem.
Length of Walk: Four miles
Starting point: Car park (S0865095; GL6 6UZ)
Approximate Time: 2-3 hours
Terrain: The country section of the walk includes several stiles, as well as steps, rough paths and fields where there may be cattle
Map: OS Explorer 179
Painswick is known as the Queen of the Cotswolds, yet, compared with more famous Cotswold honeypots, it sees relatively few visitors. One reason for this may be that – apart from its most celebrated feature, a spacious churchyard lined with 99 trimmed yews – it is a town of narrow streets and hidden corners. To make matters worse, some of those narrow streets carry the busy main road from Stroud to Cheltenham.
Painswick is well worth discovering, however. It grew rich on the cloth trade in the 17th and 18th centuries, and most of the buildings from that period have survived. Not only that, but the stone to build them came from a quarry just north of the town – still working today – which yields some of the finest and most durable building stone in the Cotswolds. Painswick was also lucky – although it may not have seemed so at the time – in never being linked to the railway network.
This meant that, while nearby towns continued to grow, Painswick declined, and much that would otherwise have been swept away survived. So it remains, not just a hidden gem, but one that retains much of the scale and character it had two centuries ago. It also means that a walk of less than four miles – such as the one described here – can not only take in much of what the town has to offer, but also explore the glorious countryside round about.
Painswick lies four miles north of Stroud on the A46. As you enter the town from the south, turn into a car park on the right (S0865095; GL6 6UZ). This is the only car park in town, and it is also free – confirmation that this is no tourist trap.
Walking on up the main road from the car park, turn right, after 100m, through a lychgate into the churchyard, which is notable not only for the aforementioned yews but also for one of the finest collection of table tombs in the country.
Follow the path to the left of the church. On the far side of the churchyard, you come to St Mary Street. Across the street is Loveday’s Cottage, dating, like so many of the cottages built for the town’s weavers, from the 17th Century. The Lovedays were a Quaker family of clothiers and farmers and the much grander Loveday House, to the right of the cottage, was built around 1740. As a busy manufacturing town, Painswick was once full of pubs. The coffee shop to the left of the cottage, for example, was originally the Black Horse.
As you turn right past a row of cottages, you will see the gates to Court House ahead. This was built in 1604 for Thomas Gardner, another wealthy clothier. Continue down Hale Lane, which soon dwindles to a footpath, before turning left uphill at the bottom.
On your left, you pass The Painswick, an imposing 18th-century mansion extended around 1900 and now a hotel. Just past it, if you look down to the right, you will see a cylindrical cloth drying house. At the end of Kemp’s Lane turn left uphill past Tibbiwell House and the Golden Heart (pictured opposite, centre) – once an inn, then a teahouse, now a private house – but still with a magnificent wrought-iron sign.
At the top turn right past the Oak – originally the Royal Oak – and bear right along Vicarage Street, where a succession of weavers’ cottages are interspersed with grander houses such as Yew Tree House, built for Thomas Loveday in 1668, and Dover House, built for another member of the Loveday family around 1720. Hidden away behind Dover House is a Quaker Meeting House of 1706.
After 300m, opposite Longridge View, when the street forks, bear right downhill – and immediately you are in the country. After another 300m, you come to the Painswick Stream, which, despite its diminutive flow, once powered several mills. The first of them, Loveday’s Mill, is on your right.
After crossing the stream, as the lane curves left, carry straight on across a stile and bear right (SO873097).
Continue in the same direction and after 200m, cross another stile and go down steps to continue alongside the stream.
Next comes Brookhouse Mill. Originally a cloth mill, around 1876 it was converted to a pin mill and, as the last working mill in Painswick, continued to produce pins until 1982. Turn left along a lane for a few metres before turning right along a rough track. Carry on in the same direction, passing several houses, for 425m, before turning right to double back down a broad track leading to Painswick Mill, whose millpond is now an ornamental lake (SO868092).
A little further on, at a T junction, turn left along a lane for 350m, before turning left past another lost pub, the Cross Hands. After crossing the stream at the bottom, look to the left to see Skinner’s Mill, before turning right to follow a footpath sign down steps.
The path runs between hedges until you reach a kissing gate (KG), beyond which it lies through a field where there may be cattle. At the end, another KG leads to a bridge over the mill-race of King’s Mill. Turn right past the mill and then left along a lane.
After 50m, turn left to follow a footpath sign up steps. At a T junction turn right through a metal squeeze stile and carry on up to the main road. Cross a stile on the far side to continue along a field path. After 150m, in the corner of the field, cross a stile on the left to carry on in the same direction along a nettle-fringed path (SO859092). Another stile leads into a field favoured by rabbits. Keep to the left-hand side and just before the end, instead of going through a KG to Washbrook Farm, bear right uphill. You are now on the Cotswold Way.
Follow a waymark to a KG in the top corner of the field (not the one leading onto tennis courts) and carry on uphill. When you reach a KG at the top, turn to take in the view before continuing between fences. Turn right when you come to a road and carry on through a KG into a field, at the end of which another KG leads onto Edge Lane (SO863097).
Turn right and at the end turn left along New Street. ‘New’ in this context is strictly relative, for it is almost 600 years old and lined with some of Painswick’s grandest houses. It is also beset by a constant flow of traffic.
The Falcon Hotel, a little way along, opened in 1554, and its bowling green is one of the oldest in England. Beyond it, Beacon House, the finest Palladian building in town, was built around 1765, possibly by Thomas Paty of Bristol. A little further on is something much older, a timber-framed building dating from 1428, which until 2013 housed the post office.
When you reach the crossroads at the end, turn right down Bisley Street, where quietness reigns once more.
On your left, the Old Fleece and the Little Fleece continue the tally of lost pubs. Turn right along Friday Street (so called because a market was held here on Fridays) to St Mary Street, where you have the choice of heading back through the churchyard to the car park or continuing your exploration of the Queen of the Cotswolds.
Discover more of Andrew Swift’s work at akemanpress.com. All images courtesy of Andrew Swift.
