Things to do in Chipping Campden and the Surrounding Area

Hidcote Manor Garden

Experience one of the country’s great gardens here in Chipping Campden.

Hidcote is an Arts and Crafts garden in the north Cotswolds. Created by the talented American horticulturist, Major Lawrence Johnston its colourful and intricately designed outdoor ‘rooms’ are always full of surprises. This is only a short way away from our holiday cottages.

It’s a must-see if you’re on holiday in the Cotswolds…Read more

Kiftsgate Court Gardens

Heather Muir created the garden at Kiftsgate. She was helped and inspired by her lifelong friend Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote Manor.

Heather decided that the garden would develop organically, rather than planning everything on paper. This has given the garden a distinctly feminine feel, almost in direct contrast to the more masculine lines being employed by Johnston at Hidcote…Read more

Walk to Broadway Tower

After leaving the town of Chipping Campden, the Trail takes you out on to the Cotswolds escarpment with stunning views from Dover’s Hill, where the annual ‘Olimpick’ games are held. The walk continues across the fields to Broadway Tower and then down into the village of Broadway with its historic connections with the Arts & Crafts movement…Read more

Visit Broadway Tower Website

Maps and brown envelopes on a table containing the history and heritage of the Cotswolds with a treasure map and trail pack.

Cotswold Discovery Trail

Explore the history and heritage of the Cotswolds with a treasure map and trail pack from Cotswold Discovery Trail. Follow the clues, answer the questions and discover the Cotswolds. You can fill two days with lots of fun, completing the treasure trails by car and by exploring on foot.

 

There are two treasure trails, one in the North Cotswolds, covering Burford, Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Campden and Broadway Tower, to name but a few. The South Cotswolds includes stops at a Roman amphitheatre in Cirencester, Badmington, Sherston and Tetbury…Read more

Market Hall

One of the most outstanding buildings in the Cotswolds is the Market Hall erected in 1627 in the centre of the town, to provide shelter for the local produce market. Excellent views of the High Street can be seen from inside its stone arches…Read more

Ernest Wilson Memorial Garden

Designed by Sir Peter Shepherd and includes around 1200 plants (most of which introduced by Ernest Wilson himself). The Gardens include a wonderful selection of plants, trees and shrubs, that were exported from regions such as China, from trips made during the turn of the 20th Century…Read more

Court Barn

Court Barn Museum is a project of the Guild of Handicraft Trust. The Trust created Court Barn Museum in 2006-2007 with generous financial help from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

In 1890, C. R. Ashbee, seeing a mass of pinks growing outside the workshops of his Guild of Handicraft in East London, chose the flower as the emblem of his Guild. It was used on their metalwork, their printing and even on their football shirts. More than a hundred years later, the Guild of Handicraft Trust has adapted the motif as its logo, acknowledging the importance of Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft in the story of twentieth-century craft and design in the north Cotswolds.

The Trust was established in 1990 to collect and care for the work of artists, architects, designers and craftspeople working in the north Cotswolds since about 1900; to foster the appreciation of these people and their work; and to encourage craft and design work of good quality in the present day.

The Court Barn logo of a stylised pink, or carnation, is based on the emblem which C. R. Ashbee designed for his Guild of Handicraft in 1890. Well worth a visit. Plenty to look at and interesting for children too…Read More

Silk Mill

When you walk into The Old Silk Mill, take a minute to look at the photograph of the four guildsmen in Sheep Street, 1902.

Charles Robert Ashbee set up his Guild of Handicrafts here in 1902. His workshop in the old silk mill in Sheep Street is now a small museum. A co-operative of twenty-three artists, ceramicists, contemporary designers, photographers, furniture makers, textile artists and sculptors take turns in stewarding an exhibition of their work and are always happy to talk to visitors about the items on show.

In the early twentieth century, the town became known as a centre for the Cotswold Arts and Crafts movement, following the move of C.R Ashbee with the members of his Guild and School of Handicraft from the East End of London in 1902. The Guild of Handicraft specialised in metalworking, producing jewellery and enamels, as well as hand-wrought copper and wrought ironwork, and furniture. A number of artists and writers settled in the area, including F.L. Griggs, the etcher, who built Dover’s House, one of the last significant Arts and Crafts houses, and set up the Campden Trust with Norman Jewson and others, initially to protect Dover’s Hill from development. H. J. Massingham, the rural writer who celebrated the traditions of the English countryside, also settled near the town…Read more

Walk to Dovers Hill

Walk west along the High Street, turn right at St Catharine’s Church turn right into Back Ends, at the junction turn left into Hoo Lane. The roadway now becomes a green lane. Proceed to the top of the green lane turning left into Kingscomb Lane (careful of traffic), then following the signposts turn right along a field edge path to the stile set between two Ash trees. Turn left and walk across the top of Dovers Hill enjoying the extensive views to the West and the Malvern Hills, taking in both the OS column and Griggs Topograph.

Leave Dovers Hill through the car park, turn left going down a 14% gradient. As you approach woodland on your right, look out for a stile and signpost on your left. Go over the stile follow the path with the hedge on your left and extensive views to your left. Reach a gate and bear right downhill to a waymarked stile in the bottom fence keep descending through a second stile until you reach a footbridge over a stream in the far left corner of the field. You will find the first of two foot bridges – go left and cross the subsequent stile and follow a brook on your right for 100 yards before taking a left to a waymarked stile in an indented corner…Read more