Things To Do
The landscape here has been drawing people in for centuries.
These are some of our favourite places to spend a day, close enough to reach easily and worth every mile.
Bath
The world heritage city of Bath sits just a short drive from our door. Walk the Georgian crescents at your own pace, follow the river, lose an afternoon in the independent shops along Milsom Street. The Romans were onto something when they settled here. There’s a particular quality to the light in this valley that you notice without quite being able to name it.
Bath Thermae Spa
The only natural thermal spa in Britain, and one of the great pleasures of the area. Soak in the rooftop pool above the city roofline and watch the sky change colour.
Bowood House & Gardens
A magnificent Georgian house set in 100 acres of parkland landscaped by Capability Brown. The Rhododendron Walks in late spring are something to plan a trip around. The gardens have that very English quality of looking entirely natural and entirely deliberate at the same time.
Browne’s Folly
A Victorian folly tower accessible on foot directly from the village, set within a nature reserve on the escarpment with views over the Avon Valley. See the On Foot section for the full walk description.
Bradford-on-Avon
Bath’s quieter neighbour, built in honey-coloured stone, with narrow streets that climb the hillside and a medieval bridge over the Avon still in use today. There are independent bookshops, excellent food, and the kind of town centre where you feel no particular urgency to leave. It takes about fifteen minutes on the train from Bath.
Castle Combe
Often cited as Britain’s prettiest village. The stream, the market cross, the Cotswold-stone cottages all hold together as a place in a way that some famous villages don’t. Go mid-week, walk down from the top of the hill.
Corsham Court & Gardens
The gardens at Corsham Court were laid out by Capability Brown, with 25 acres to explore including an arboretum, an 18th-century Bath House, a formal lily pond and rose gardens. The house itself contains an important private collection of Old Masters and is open on selected days. The walled garden in particular is quiet, beautiful, and very little visited, which is exactly how we like our discoveries.
The Courts Garden, Holt
A National Trust Arts and Crafts garden arranged as a series of outdoor “rooms,” each with its own character and planting scheme, with herbaceous borders, topiary and an orchard. A good hour spent, especially in summer.
Dyrham Park
Set in 270 acres of ancient parkland filled with magnificent trees. The 17th-century baroque house contains a remarkable collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings, Delftware and lacquerwork. The interior is one of the most intact of its period in England. Deer still graze the parkland as they have for centuries. One of those rare places that rewards every season differently.
Great Chalfield Manor
A 15th-century moated manor house with an Arts and Crafts garden and a 14th-century church, just two miles from Bradford-on-Avon. It’s a National Trust property, but one that feels genuinely lived-in rather than preserved under glass.
Iford Manor & the Peto Gardens
Tucked into the bottom of a tranquil valley just a few miles from us, Iford Manor’s Grade I listed gardens are among the most beautiful and least known in England. Terraces, ancient statues, water features and bold planting schemes designed in the early 20th century by Harold Peto. They have the quality of somewhere discovered rather than visited.
Kennet & Avon Canal – Bradford-on-Avon
The Kennet & Avon runs along the valley below us, with narrowboats moored along the banks and an easy towpath in both directions. You can walk or cycle all the way into Bath (see the On Foot section), hire a narrowboat for an afternoon, or simply sit on the wharf at Bradford-on-Avon and watch the world move at its own pace. The Avoncliff Aqueduct carries the canal over the River Avon and railway line below. It’s a piece of early engineering that still surprises you when you come upon it on foot.
Lacock
A 13th-century National Trust village so unchanged that it has stood in for Downton Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter, and countless others. It’s worth visiting on a quiet morning before the film buffs arrive, when the village is just itself again, which turns out to be rather lovely.
Longleat
Longleat is unapologetically itself: a magnificent Elizabethan house set in Capability Brown parkland, with a world-class safari park operating in one of England’s most beautiful estates. It manages the unlikely trick of being both grand and genuinely fun. It will occupy a full day.
Prior Park Landscape Garden
An 18th-century landscape garden set in a sweeping valley above Bath, created by local entrepreneur Ralph Allen with input from Capability Brown and the poet Alexander Pope. It features one of only four Palladian bridges in the world, dating from 1755. No parking on site; arrive by bus or on foot from the city, which turns out to be the right way to arrive anyway.
Stourhead House & Gardens
One of the finest landscape gardens in the world, and yet quietly so. The lake walk at Stourhead is designed to unfold slowly, each view giving way to the next: temples, bridges, grottos, ancient trees reflected on still water. It has drawn artists for two centuries and it’s easy to see why.
Westbury White Horse & Hill Fort
The chalk figure cut into the hillside above Westbury is most dramatic from a distance. From the vale below it commands the whole landscape, but walking up to the ridge and along the Iron Age earthworks is equally worth the climb, with views stretching across three counties on a clear day.
Stonehenge
There is nothing quite like arriving at Stonehenge in the early morning, when the light is low and the crowds have yet to gather. Whatever you think you know about it, standing beside the stones is a different experience entirely. Still strange, still worth the visit.
Cheddar Gorge & Caves – Somerset, approx. 30 miles
Near-vertical limestone cliffs rising around 450 feet from the floor of the gorge, with underground cave systems that have been explored for thousands of years. The gorge road through is one of the more dramatic drives in England, though parking and walking the rim offers a better view.
Wookey Hole Caves – Somerset, approx. 30 miles
A series of underground chambers carved over millions of years by the River Axe, lit and guided, and home to some genuinely impressive stalactites. The caves sit beside a Victorian paper mill and have been drawing visitors since the 19th century, which tells you something about their staying power.
The Newt in Somerset – Near Bruton, 35 miles
A Georgian country estate centred on Hadspen House, set among orchards, lakes and woodland that have been shaped over 300 years. The estate has been transformed into something genuinely extraordinary: world-class gardens, a reconstructed Roman villa, a cyder cellar, estate-grown restaurants and a spa. Garden membership is required for most of the estate, but it’s worth it.
Glasscombe sits on Farleigh Rise in Monkton Farleigh, northwest of Bradford-on-Avon and east of the city of Bath, which means you are at the centre of some of the finest walking in the south of England.
The Bathscape Circular
Walk through Monkton Farleigh, Dundas Aqueduct & Browne’s Folly. This is one of the finest circular routes in the area and defines the landscape immediately around us. The route descends from the village through fields to the Avon Valley, where the Dundas Aqueduct carries the Kennet and Avon Canal above the River Avon and the main railway line. Built in 1805, it stretches 150 yards across three arches of Bath stone. From there the walk follows the towpath before climbing back up through the Browne’s Folly nature reserve, managed by the Avon Wildlife Trust.
The Kennet & Avon Canal Towpath
The towpath runs in both directions from Dundas Aqueduct with no navigation required.
Heading south towards Bradford-on-Avon is a gentle 3-mile walk from the aqueduct, passing the Avoncliff Aqueduct, another Bath stone span carrying the canal over the river, before arriving in the town at the 14th-century Tithe Barn.
Heading north towards Bath from Dundas is approximately 7 miles along the towpath, passing the Claverton Pumping Station and Bathampton before arriving at the back of Bath Spa station. The scent of wild garlic fills the air in summer; herons, ducks and swans are regular companions. The towpath is well-surfaced and almost entirely flat throughout.
The Bath Skyline Walk
Managed by the National Trust, this six-mile circular walk rings the hills above Bath through meadows, beech woodland and ancient earthworks. The route passes Prior Park with its lakes and Palladian Bridge, crosses Claverton Down, and continues through woodland towards Sham Castle, an 18th-century folly, with views over Bath towards the Mendip Hills. On a clear day the views extend to Wales.
The Cotswold Way
Extending from the market town of Chipping Campden to the Roman city of Bath, the 102-mile Cotswold Way follows the western edge of the Cotswold Hills through rolling pastures, beech woodland and honey-coloured villages built from Cotswold stone. The path along the Cotswold escarpment offers ever-changing views west towards the River Severn and the Malvern Hills.
You don’t need to walk the whole thing to understand why people do.
A note on maps and conditions
Good walking boots are advisable for any route off the canal towpath, and the escarpment paths can be muddy after rain. The Bathscape Walk 8 route, which begins at our door, is an excellent introduction to the landscape before you venture further afield.