Bourton-on-the-Water, England - April 12th to 13th, 2025
We booked a hike and bike tour of the Cotswolds in England. The tour started and ended in the town of Moreton-in-Marsh. From Moreton, we biked to the town of Broadway where we stayed two nights and hiked while we were there. Then we cycled to Bourton-on-the-Water where we stayed two nights, hiking again during our stay. Then one last bike ride brought us back to Moreton. The previous two posts covered Moreton-in-Marsh and Broadway. This last post on the Cotswolds covers Bourton-on-the-Water, including our bike ride from Broadway to Bourton-on-the-Water.
Saturday, we cycled from Broadway to Bourton-on-the-Water. We had our luggage ready to be picked up by 8:30 and Ann went to breakfast at the same time, as Russell’s of Broadway didn’t start serving until 8:30 am. They were short staffed that morning and quite a few people showed up at the same time, so the one server was very busy.
Keith didn’t go to breakfast again, but this time Ann ate a quick cold breakfast from the buffet (yogurt, muesli, and fruit), then took some toast and jam back to the room for Keith.
We got a little earlier start on our ride than we did on our previous bike ride. We were underway before 9:30 am. Our main stop for the day was Sudeley Castle, just outside the town of Winchcombe. The castle was initially built in the 1400’s for Ralph Boteler, the Lord High Treasurer of England, with additions added several times over the next several hundred years.
The property was seized by the crown and was owned by King Edward IV and King Richard III. King Henry VII’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, lived in the castle and was buried there. The castle was damaged at the end of the First English Civil War and laid in ruins for a couple of centuries before being purchased and restored by the Dent family, to use as their home.
Sudeley Castle is not a National Trust property, so we paid our 23 pounds per person to take a self-guided tour of the castle and gardens. The property is nicely laid out with signs directing you around a circuit to see everything, both inside the castle and outside, keeping the stream of people flowing.
After leaving Sudeley Castle, the bike route took us up a long and steep hill. The motors on our e-bikes were not powerful enough. It seemed like they turned off, perhaps because of too much torque due to our weight and the steepness of the hill. We struggled for a little bit, then hopped off and walked the bikes the rest of the way up the hill. By the top, our hearts were pounding.
In the small village of Guiting Power, we stopped for lunch at the Hollow Bottom pub. There were tables out front with views out across a sheep pasture. Keith spotted a couple of quail scurrying across the field. We had grilled sandwiches along with a cup of fries. Keith’s sandwich was a ham and cheese while Ann’s was Cumberland sausage.
Just before reaching Bourton-on-the-Water, we passed through the small village of Lower Slaughter. Being a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon, the place was swarming with people enjoying the place. However, when we arrived in Bourton-on-the-Water, it was packed with even more people. Somehow the village loses some of its charm with so many people crowded in it.
We reached our accommodations for the night, the Manor Close B&B, just before 3 pm. Check-in was not until 4 pm, so we locked up our bikes out of the way and strolled down the street to find a drink.
We popped into the pub at the Kingsbridge Inn for a drink. Keith tried a pint of the Banks’s Bitter while Ann had a ginger beer. There was no place to sit outside, so we sat at a table inside. It was quieter and more peaceful away from the mob outside. Ann pulled out her power brick and charged her phone while we drank. Because she was taking so much video with her phone while we rode, it drained the battery to the point that it died. Luckily, we were able to switch over to Keith’s phone for navigation, as he had also downloaded the routes into his Ride with GPS app. Ann meant to charge her phone when we stopped for lunch, but she forgot.
So, again, we didn’t have an accurate record of our ride. Ann’s phone died with about a mile or two to go, but AllTrails saved the route up to that point. It said we had gone 26.2 miles with an elevation gain of 4111 feet up to that point. The route in Ride with GPS said the whole route was 25.9 with an elevation gain of 1670 feet. Again, which elevation gain do you trust?
After our drinks, we went back to the B&B to check in. Our luggage was waiting for us in our room. The owner showed us around, including how to operate the shower. It was an electric heat-on-demand shower.
For dinner, we walked over to the Duke of Wellington pub. It was about a block off of High Street, so it seemed less crowded than the other pubs and restaurants. They had some outside tables in the back garden alongside the River Windrush. It was nice to sit there and listen to the flowing water.
Ann ordered the gnocchi bake while Keith had the gammon steak. To drink, Keith had a pint of Tribute, a Cornish Pale Ale from the St. Austell Brewery. Ann drank a pint of Stowford Press Dark Berry cider. It was her favorite cider so far. It was a little sweeter than the others and the berries gave the cider a wonderful flavor.
The village was less crowded as we walked back to our B&B. Now that’s better.
Sunday morning, Ann ate breakfast alone again. The B&B doesn’t allow hot take out food in the rooms, which we can understand. However, they did give Ann a prepackaged yogurt to take up to the room for Keith. Thank you!
We relaxed in the room a little bit before heading out for our hike. There were two options, a five mile and a ten mile. It didn’t look like either one had a lot of elevation gain, so we chose the ten mile route. Before we left town, we stopped off at Budgens, a small grocery store, to pick up some energy bars in case we couldn’t find a place for lunch along our hike.
The route took us from Bourton to Naunton, then through Upper and Lower Slaughter on the way back. It was a cloudy, cooler day. Before we reached Naunton, it started to rain. We can’t complain too much because this was the first rainy day since we arrived in England on March 24th.
Naunton was about half way along the route. The hike description told us there was a pub in Naunton, called the Black Horse Inn, but you would probably need reservations to get a table. Not knowing what time we might arrive there, we took our chances and didn’t reserve a spot. Despite being a Sunday, there was plenty of room at the inn, probably due to the inclement weather.
Keith still didn’t want to be coughing around others inside, so we took a table outside under one of the table umbrellas. For lunch, Ann tried their special for the day, a chicken mulligatawny soup while Keith had a tuna and mayo sandwich with potato chips and coleslaw. The mulligatawny is a curry from the Tamil region of India. It had a wonderful, spicy flavor and really hit the spot on a damp, cold day. To drink, we both had a ginger beer. It has become our soft drink of choice so far in England and is available in most pubs.
While we were eating out on the patio, the skies opened up and the rain poured down on us. The umbrellas protected us for the most part, but the water started dripping down the backs of our chairs, getting our seats wet. So we moved to a more protected table. By the time we finished eating, the rain let up and didn’t come back for the rest of our hike. Good timing!
The hike was nice, going past a race horse farm and a dovecote. The dovecote building was open. You couldn’t go inside, but you could peer into the doorway and see all the doves and nests inside.
Upper and Lower Slaughter were cute, picturesque villages. They are fairly close to Bourton-on-the-Water, so there were a lot more people wandering around them compared to Naunton. Still, it wasn’t nearly as many people that we saw the day before in the warm sunshine.
According to Ride with GPS, we walked 10.1 miles with an elevation gain of 526 feet. According to AllTrails, it was over 1000 feet in elevation gain. It took us about five hours to complete, including our time eating lunch at the Black Horse Inn. It was hike 7 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2025.
Back in Bourton, Keith still didn’t want to eat with others inside. Because hot take-out food was not allowed in our rooms, we opted for a couple of take-away pizzas from Oli Bonny Wood Fired Pizza. Paired with a couple of bottles of water from Budgens, we sat on a park bench next to the River Windrush and enjoyed our meal.
The pizza was delicious. Ann had the Broccy Balboa with Italian Sausage and broccoli, while Keith ordered the Napoli Dynamite, with spicy pepperoni and fresh chilli peppers. The hot pizza kept our laps warm for a little bit while we ate.
We found Bourton-on-the-Water to be the most picturesque of the Cotswold villages that we visited, but also the most crowded. However, we were there on the weekend, so it may be better during the week. Even so, we thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the Cotswolds.
Check out our related video: Bourton-on-the-Water, England
(Ann)