It’s hard to remember a time when the Cotswolds wasn’t the gold standard for a British countryside holiday: the pub-going, hill-walking, Cluedo-playing kind, which draws travellers hand over fist and has yielded some of the best hotels in the UK (more on that later). From the less developed swoops and dells in the south Cotswolds, to the postcard villages in the north, there are plenty of locally-treasured restaurants to sniff out.
“The Killingworth Castle Pub,” says Alex Eagle, creative director of her eponymous brand, who has a house in Woodstock; “Juliet for oysters” says Luke Edward Hall, an artist, designer, and creative director of Chateau Orlando, who rents a cottage on the border of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Plus there are independent shops to scout – “Borzoi Bookshop in Stow-on-the-Wold,” says Carole Bamford, the founder of Bamford and Daylesford, “for unusual and specialist titles from small publishers" – and antique dealers to sift through, particularly in bustling Tetbury (go to Lorfords and Brownrigg first, then Top Banana after lunch). You could devote an entire trip to walking the Cotswold Way, over a 100 miles of ridges and vales, from Bath to Chipping Campden.
Attractions are so bountiful, and in such apple-pie order, these days, that the Cotswolds might be in danger of calcifying in its own success, were it not for a persistent undercurrent of hustle and artistry. “The Cotswolds have been my home for almost forty years,” says Bamford, “and you never quite know who or what you might stumble across next. There’s a spirit of enterprise. That’s part of the magic.” Those sentiments are echoed by Edward Hall. “I do think,” he says, “beneath the surface, there is a lot going on that people don't always see or take much notice of. It's worth doing a bit of digging.”
Below is a Vogue guide to the best hotels in the Cotswolds, which all make an ideal base to explore the area.
Soho Farmhouse
The decentralised sprawl of cabins and houses at Soho Farmhouse, with their planked wood walls and porches (some with Norman Rockwell-style rocking chairs), suggests an upscale, American-style summer camp. And why not? The property runs over a hundred acres of hillocked north Oxfordshire countryside, primed for outdoor living: there are rowboats on the lake, horses in the stables, and clay pigeons to ping out of the clear blue sky. No cars are allowed on site, but you can wheel around on bespoke Temple bicycles, or call the electric milk float for rides. A recent renovation of the health club has produced three new padel courts, an overhauled gym, and a raft of up-to-date wellness treatments (including a red light therapy bed, IV drips, hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber, and LED Light Facial treatments from The Light Salon). The cabins are ruggedly handsome (wood-burning stoves beside stacks of firewood; pint-sized kitchenettes with large teapots) and refreshingly private (some digs come with outdoor bathtubs), so if the weather is crummy, or if tootling around in gumboots simply isn’t your idea of a good time, you can comfortably stay put.
- Amenities: restaurants, bakery, spa, health club, pools, kids club, members club, movie theatre, horse riding
- Bonus tip: Quince and Clover deli and coffee shop in Great Tew is a nice off-campus walk, and serves some of the best soup-and-sandwich lunches in the Cotswolds
- Address: Great Tew, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire OX7 4JS
Lucknam Park
At the southern edge of the Cotswolds, just northeast of Bath, Lucknam Park is an unusually good-looking 17th century pile at the end of a mile-long avenue of trees, known for its equestrian experiences. Around a dozen horses live in the stables on site, and you’ll see them disporting wherever you look. The equestrian centre caters to guests aged 5 and up, of any ability: there are group hacks through 500 acres of parkland, private lessons in the school, and free “meet the pony” events for kids who aren’t ready to ride. Restaurant Hywel Jones serves modern British food in a refined, chandeliers-and-white-tablecloths setting, and has held a Michelin star for twenty years (they offer a three-course children’s menu too). Forty-two traditional bedrooms and suites are spread across the vast manor house and courtyard, some appointed with antique four-posters and open fires, and there are nine cottages on the grounds equipped with kitchens, gardens, and wood-burning stoves.
- Amenities: restaurant, spa, horse riding
- Bonus tip: From Tuesday to Thursday, the hotel offers “Afternoon Tea and Canter” sessions, which involve an hourlong ride around the estate, followed by afternoon tea. You don’t need to be staying at the hotel to participate.
- Address: Lucknam Park, Colerne, Chippenham, Wiltshire SN14 8AZ
The Rectory
Since opening eight years ago, The Rectory has been an in-the-know hotel for seasoned travellers – the type of place you know is safe to recommend to just about anybody. It’s fairly priced and a looker (Georgian bones, with gently modern finishes), set in one of the more dramatic stretches of the Cotswolds AONB, and walking distance from a first-rate pub (The Potting Shed, which is under the same ownership as the hotel). There aren’t a lot of extraneous bells and whistles (if you’re hankering after a spa day, for instance, you’ll need to go elsewhere), but everything they do, they do well, namely: unpretentious staff, comfortable beds, terrific food. From this autumn, head chef Damien Clisby, formerly chef director at Petersham Nurseries, will be taking over in the kitchen, so expect The Rectory to become an even busier destination restaurant than it is now.
- Amenities: restaurant, pool
- Bonus tip: The ample, beautifully cooked breakfasts served in the glasshouse are half the reason to stay here. Start with the continental buffet, then move on to the buttermilk waffles.
- Address: The Rectory, Crudwell, Malmesbury SN16 9EP
Daylesford Stays Cottages
The roster of cottages run by Daylesford are self-catering properties, and not technically part of a hotel, but they’re so inviting that we couldn’t leave them out. There are fifteen cottages in the village of Daylesford, where Daylesford Farm and its organic farmshop are located, and thirteen in Kingham (home to The Wild Rabbit), plus five more around the farm itself, and a single four-bedroom farmhouse in Lower Oddington. Like the Daylesford pubs, the interiors are different property to property, but they sing from the same hymn sheet: neutral colours, natural materials, high-quality finishes. The cottages range in size from one to five bedrooms, the largest being Fowler’s House, a late Victorian house in Kingham originally built for a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, who wanted to mimic the feel of an Oxford townhouse.
- Amenities: Private chefs available for booking
- Bonus tip: You can get your groceries delivered from Daylesford Farmshop; don’t miss the Adelstrop cheese, turmeric houmous, or loaves of sourdough.
- Address: Various locations in Daylesford, Kingham, and Lower Oddington
The Double Red Duke
As you buzz up Bourton Road in the Oxfordshire village of Clanfield, the sight of the Double Red Duke will lighten the heart: a 17th century roadside inn with gabled windows and striped parasols out front, where locals and visiting Londoners sip drinks side by side. There are nineteen bedrooms tucked throughout the property, some with roll-top baths and William Morris-patterned wallpaper (Kelmscott Manor, Morris’s home, is only a few miles away), all with a rose-tinted atmosphere (don’t overlook the jar of freshly-baked cookies beside the kettle). Food is the main focus here – no surprise, given that the owners, Georgie and Sam Pearman, are also behind the restaurant group Cubitt House, which runs some of west London’s best-loved pubs. At the Double Red Duke, a wide selection of cuts of Hereford beef are cooked over charcoal, with the option to add sides (triple-cooked chips, fine beans, and a dish of port sauce, if you ask me). The kitchen also hosts a supper club series that brings visiting chefs to Clanfield; next up is Margot Henderson, of Rochelle Canteen, on 8 October.
- Amenities: restaurant, bar, a shepherd’s hut for spa treatments
- Bonus tip: The “breakfast muffin,” a sandwich that comes with a sausage patty, fried egg, and cheese, is worth getting dressed and downstairs for (breakfast service wraps up at 10am).
- Address: The Double Red Duke, Bourton Rd, Clanfield, Bampton OX18 2RB
Thyme
Family-owned Thyme is both a home and a business for the founder, Caryn Hibbert, who raised her family at Southrop Manor, the principal house in the village of Southrop, before converting a handful of run-down farm buildings on the surrounding estate into a thriving hotel, restaurant and cooking school. Today, Caryn’s daughter Camilla is the general manager, and her eldest son Charlie is the chef director of Thyme’s fine-dining restaurant, The Ox Barn, and its lively village pub, The Swan. The feel of the hotel is unsurprisingly homey, with palmy, quintessentially English interiors: buttoned-wool armchairs, roll-top tubs, and botanical-print textiles produced by Bertioli, an interiors and lifestyle company run by Caryn and Camilla. The estate ranges over 150 acres of gardens, farmland, water meadows and riverbanks, which guests are welcome to explore.
- Amenities: restaurant, bar, pub, spa, pool, cooking school, workshops
- Bonus tip: Even if you aren’t staying at the hotel, book a table for dinner at The Ox Barn; the kitchen uses ingredients from the estate for a Mediterranean-inspired menu, and its soaring dining room, in a former Victorian oxen house, is one of the most beautiful in the Cotswolds.
- Address: Southrop Manor, Thyme, Gloucestershire GL7 3NX
Estelle Manor
Guests waited years to check into Estelle Manor, the Grade-II listed, Edwardian stately home propped in 3000 acres of parkland, on the eastern reaches of the Cotswolds. The four-square mansion used to be known as Eynsham Hall, before hotelier Sharan Pasricha began a meticulous five-year overhaul to create a pertly glamorous hotel and private member’s club. The joyful design of the main house, conjured by the New York-based architectural firm Roman and Williams, is a medley of more is more is more: glistening chinoiserie wallpaper and slinky velvet sofas made for rubbing ankles over nightcaps; hand-painted murals, ebony four-posters, and a morning fry-up with hash browns on a silver platter. Special attention has been paid to bathing: a 25-metre, heated outdoor swimming pool extends from the manor’s south side, surrounded by striped parasols, and there is also a vast, Roman-inspired bathhouse, Eynsham Baths, equipped with plunge pools of varying temperatures, and a hay sauna. Though you can wear whatever you like (there is no dress code at this club), Estelle Manor is less of a tweedy country estate, more of a glittering urban outpost in the wilds.
- Amenities: four restaurants, bar, pool, bathhouse, spa, gym, garden tours, private members club
- Bonus Tip: A specialty of the Glasshouse restaurant is the Chicken Panzanella, a sharing platter of roasted chicken over toasted bread and hothouse tomatoes. It’s impossible to oversell it.
- Address: Estelle Manor, Eynsham Park, Oxfordshire OX29 6PN
The Bull, Charlbury
The market town of Charlbury is close enough to London to be a prized commuter hub, and that makes The Bull – a first rate pub with rooms – unusually reachable as a weekend destination. It’s a single train from London Paddington, and a 10-minute walk from Charlbury station to get here. On arrival, you’ll find a pared-back restaurant with exposed beams and bright open fires, plaster walls, and if it’s the weekend, a roaring bar. Like the ambiance in the pub, the 10 bedrooms are bracingly simple, with little artificial light and a neutral colour palette. There are creature comforts like standalone baths, radios, woollen blankets, and rainfall showers. A short walk down the road, there is also a two-bedroom cottage in a redeveloped bakery (Loaf Cottage), where families can stay; kids aren’t allowed in the other bedrooms. The Bull was founded by Phil Winser, James Gummer, and Olivier van Themsche, the team behind two ballyhooed London pubs, The Pelican in Notting Hill and The Hero in Maida Vale, and as you would expect, traditional British food (much of it grown on a nearby farm in Chipping Norton) is the main draw here. Book in for dinner at least once.
- Amenities: restaurant, bar
- Bonus Tip: The Bull is known for its pies. Order one with a heaped bowl of roasted potatoes and a green salad on the side.
- Address: Sheep Street, Charlbury, Chipping Norton OX7 3RR
Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons
Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons is the long-reigning restaurant with rooms in the UK; chef Raymond Blanc opened for business in 1984, and has maintained two Michelin stars ever since. The food is French with British ingredients (lamb from the Lake District with sheep’s curd and basil; Scottish salmon with apples from the hotel’s orchard), many of which are grown yards from the kitchen in the exquisite potager garden, which also hosts workshops on planting and growing. Bedrooms are upstairs in the main house and scattered throughout the formal gardens that envelope the property; they’re good looking and comfortable above all else, designed as ideal places to flop after a long meal in the restaurant. This is bucket-list eating; Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons is a restaurant that guests plan trips around. But after 40 years, there are plans afoot: from January 2026, the property will close for an 18-month renovation, with a grand reopening scheduled for the summer of 2027. So if you don’t want to wait, get your skates on and make a booking for the next three months.
- Amenities: restaurant, garden, gardening school, cooking school
- Bonus Tip: The full and half-day gardening classes, which take place in Le Manoir’s gardens and glasshouse, are practical, hands-on courses with topics like fruit tree-pruning and seed collection. It’s a memorable way to experience the property without staying overnight.
- Address: Church Road, Great Milton, Oxford OX44 7PD
The Wild Rabbit
In 2013, Carole Bamford opened The Wild Rabbit in Kingham, the first Daylesford pub with rooms in a blue-chip stable that would go on to include The Three Horseshoes in Asthall, The Bell in Charlbury and The Fox in Oddington. The Wild Rabbit was a proof of concept for the unknockable Daylesford aesthetic: rustic natural materials with plenty of texture (wide oak floors, bare stone walls, exposed beams, pitched ceilings with tongue and groove panelling), buttery textiles, and a deliberately narrow colour scheme of creams, greys, and browns. The effect is grounding and restful, and combined with its location in honeypot Kingham, The Wild Rabbit still requires some forward planning to get a reservation. Downstairs in the open-kitchen, destination restaurant, the food is more refined than you might expect (organic côte de boeuf for two; sweetbreads with an optional supplement for truffle), but the pub at the front is come-as-you-are. You can find seats beside the log fire, or out on the terrace in good weather.
- Amenities: restaurant, bar
- Bonus Tip: The pub is a hub for community events; look for local bands playing every Tuesday evening, and supper clubs with themes like foraging and seasonal game.
- Address: Church Street, Kingham, Chipping Norton OX7 6YA