Moreton-in-Marsh, England - April 9th, and 14th, 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. This post covers our first night in Moreton along with the ride back to Moreton for our last night.
We had three trains to get from Hinckley to Moreton-in-Marsh. The first two trains were with Cross Country with the last train being a GWR (Great Western Railway) train. It was our first time riding with Cross Country and we were not impressed. The first train was busy, but not completely full. We had reserved seats, but they weren’t assigned. The seats we sat in were not big enough for Ann’s long legs. She managed to wedge her legs into the seat. Not all the seats were the same amount of leg room. Ann was grateful when the person in the larger seats across from us got off at the next station. We quickly changed seats and Ann was more comfortable.
We switched trains in the Birmingham New Street station. The station is quite large and busy. It was underground. We heard there was a shopping center above the station, but we didn’t have enough time to get out to see it. They loaded and unloaded two trains from the same platform at the same time, so there was an A and B area to each platform. We had only 15 minutes to transfer, but luckily, we just had to move from one side of the platform to the other, from platform 10A to 11B.
Our second Cross Country train was worse than the first one. The train was packed. We headed for the last car hoping to get a seat. A woman offered to switch seats so we could sit together. Thank you! Again, the seats were too small for Ann’s legs and this time we had to put our luggage on our laps to add to the discomfort. There were overhead storage areas, but only for small bags. We put our daypacks up there. There was probably a luggage area at the other end of the car, but it would have been too difficult to get them there, as people were standing in the aisle. Plus, we wouldn’t have been able to keep an eye on them. Again we had reserved, but unassigned seats. We’re not sure what we would have done if there were no seats available when we boarded. Do we start asking people if they have reserved seats? No conductor came around checking tickets.
Our second transfer was at the Worcestershire Parkway station. This was a smaller station with only three platforms and we had half an hour this time, so there was no rush. The station was so quiet compared to the Birmingham New Street station. The GWR train was such a contrast to the previous two. The cars were mostly empty. We had reserved, assigned seats, but we didn’t feel that was necessary as most of the seats were available. The seats were comfortable, with plenty of leg room. Ah, now that’s better.
Each of the three trains were only about half an hour each, so we arrived in Moreton-in-Marsh just a little over two hours after leaving Hinckley. From the Moreton-in-Marsh train station, our hotel was less than a quarter of a mile away, about a 5 minute walk.
We were starting a hike and bike tour of the Cotswolds, through a company called Cotswolds Walks. They arranged all the hotels for us for the next six nights. For our first night in Moreton-in-Marsh, we stayed in the White Hart Royal Hotel. It is in a former 16th century coaching inn. When we checked in, they said they had upgraded our room. We not quite sure why, but we were not going to argue.
The room was lovely. It was on the ground floor, with the windows and the entry door facing the courtyard. There was a large seating area and a large bathroom with heated towel racks. The bed was probably a queen sized bed, but after our small bed on Takara, it felt enormous. So did the whole room. There was more than enough room for Ann to do her evening stretches. She hadn’t done them in a week, so it felt good.
When we checked in, we made dinner reservations for 7:30 pm. They didn’t have many spots left. We spent some time in the room reviewing our hike and bike tour itinerary, then we went for a short walk up and down High Street before dinner, admiring the old architecture, shops, and restaurants. High Street is also the A429, so it was a constant stream of traffic. Just like we experienced in Bradford-on-Avon, once you take a side street away from the highway, there is hardly any traffic and it is much quieter. However, most of the interesting buildings in Moreton-in-Marsh are right along High Street. There is some green space between High Street and one row of buildings which does make it a little calmer.
When we arrived for our dinner reservation, they put us in the pub instead of the restaurant. This led to a little confusion because we weren’t sure whether we needed to go to the bar and order, like you do in a pub, or there would be a waiter to come to our table, like in a restaurant. It turned out to be the latter.
Keith ordered the Chicken Supreme which came with truffle mashed potatoes, roasted red pepper, broccoli, and pan gravy. Despite skipping lunch that day, Ann didn’t feel very hungry, so she ordered from the light and healthy section of the menu. The description read “Coriander & garlic marinated 4oz sirloin steak, red chili, ginger, garlic, spiced crispy chickpeas, pickled cucumber salad”. What came out was a steak salad, with mixed greens, and a few thin pickle slices. It was not what she expected. She didn’t see any chickpeas, unless they were ground up. Ann’s salad tasted good, but it was a little lighter than she expected, so she was a little envious of Keith’s dinner. We also skipped dessert. We’ve been taking in enough calories over the past week with Donna’s wonderful cooking along with morning and afternoon tea, that we could probably skip a few meals and we wouldn’t miss them. However, Ann did eat the packaged biscuits (cookies) in our room when she got back from dinner.
Our reserved breakfast time was 7:45 am. Keith was fighting a cold and didn’t want to be coughing around others at breakfast, so he skipped breakfast and Ann ate alone. The White Hart Royal had a wonderful selection of breakfast items. Ann opted for the Eggs Florentine along with a freshly baked croissant.
Thursday we rode our rented e-bikes from Moreton-in-Marsh to Broadway. We’ll cover that in our next post. This post picks up again as we were leaving Bourton-on-the-Water to cycle back to Moreton-in-Marsh.
Monday started out sunny, but cool. Keith skipped going to breakfast one last time and had yogurt in the room. Our bags were packed up by 8:30 am and we were on our bikes, heading back to Moreton-in-Marsh by 10 am.
The main route back to Moreton was only 15 miles with an elevation gain of 899 feet, but there were two additional circular routes you could tack on. One was the Kingham Loop which added on 9.3 miles. The other was the Stow-on-the-Wold Loop which added on 6.5 miles. We considered adding Stow-on-the-Wold, but the shorter route sounded better to Keith. We needed to have our bikes back to Moreton by 4 pm and the clouds started rolling in, dropping the temperatures. Ann didn’t complain about taking the shorter route, as she didn’t want to get caught riding in the cold rain, plus her bum was still a little tender from the previous two rides.
There weren’t any highlights along the route to stop and check out, so we made quick time getting back to Moreton. We arrived at the hotel before noon. It was too early to check in, but we locked up the bikes in the hotel courtyard, as we were instructed to do by the bike rental company.
While we waited for our room to be ready, we walked across the street to Martha’s Coffee & Kitchen for lunch. We both had teas and sandwiches. Keith had the Moreton Melt minus the Old Hooky Cheddar cheese, because they had run out of it. The Moreton Melt consisted of Double Gloucester (another type of cheese), house red onion jam, and house pickled cucumbers on Pullmans Sourdough. Ann’s sandwich was bacon, brie, and chilli jam on Pullmans Sourdough. She topped off her meal with a slice of lemon drizzle cake. All was very tasty.
After lunch, we were able to check into our room. Our luggage arrived from Bourton just as we were checking in. Perfect timing. We took our showers and hand washed our dirty clothes to give them time to dry before leaving on Tuesday. Then we hung out in the room until dinner.
At 5 pm, we walked over to the Black Bear Inn to hopefully have an early dinner. However, even though the pub was open, they didn’t start serving dinner until 6 pm. We reserved a table for 6 pm, as it looked like many of the tables were already reserved.
In the meantime, we just hung out on a park bench on the green, watching all the traffic pass by on High Street. It is a really busy road, as it is the A429 highway. Moreton would be a more charming town if there was less traffic. We noticed all the small cars passing by, little Fiats, MINI Coopers, and even a Smart Car. Those seemed like very practical vehicles for the narrow roads in England. However, we were surprised by some of the really large vehicles, like motor homes and camper vans. How do people drive those on some of these roads? We would imagine you would have to be very careful about which roads you took.
Dinner at the Black Bear Inn was wonderful. We both had their special for the day, pan roast lamb rump, cauliflower cheese puree, roasted carrot, and salsa verde with a choice of new potatoes or chips (chunky fries) and seasonal vegetables or rocket (arugula) & parmesan salad. We both chose the salad while Keith had the new potatoes and Ann had the chips. Everything was very enjoyable.
Moreton-in-Marsh was nice, but we liked Broadway and Bourton-on-the-Water even better. However, Moreton had good train connections, so it was a great place to start and end our tour of the Cotswolds. Stay tuned for our posts on Broadway and Bourton-on-the-Water.
Check out our related video: Moreton-in-Marsh, England
(Ann)