Pubs & Pathways
The Cotswolds
September 2027
Open to all, 18 and over.
The Cotswolds were built on wool and are best met on foot. Six unhurried days along the old green roads, the drovers' ways and the wool routes, each mile rewarded with the two things this landscape has always done best: a fire with something good cooking on the other side of it, and a story worth staying up for. You walk with a day pack, your bags travel ahead of you, and each evening returns you to a country-house bed.
Mornings belong to the paths. Afternoons belong to the makers of the five mill valleys, where you might sit down to a wool-felting or weaving workshop with a Cotswold craftsperson, or take a private tasting flight at Cotswolds Distillery. Evenings belong to the storytellers who still carry the folklore of the hills, and to ghost stories told by firelight in a low-beamed room.
Running through all of it is the built history of the place. Why the wool churches are the size they are, why every village is the same honey colour, how a drystone wall stands for two hundred years without mortar, and what a weaver's cottage window tells you about the person who worked behind it.
Who Holds the Week
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Michael Lamerton, our head guide for the week
A lifelong Cotswold man, Michael is passionate about this corner of England—and he is one of our own, rather than a hired hand. Born in Cornwall and raised in the Gloucestershire countryside, he has spent most of his life immersed in rural England. His appreciation runs far deeper than enjoying a beautiful view: he understands the landscape, traditions, villages and distinctive character of rural British life, and can show you places you would simply never find on your own.
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Ken Lush, head brewer at Uley Brewery
Ken has been brewing under Uley Bury on the Cotswold escarpment for years, in a Victorian brewhouse working off its own spring water. He takes us down into the vaulted cellar where the ale is made, pours the Old Spot, and then, because this is Uley and that is what happens there, sings for the party. Ale and song in the room both come from, which is not a thing you can book anywhere else.
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Sean Callery
Sean Callery lives in the Cotswolds and has spent years collecting the stories most visitors walk straight past. He's a Blue Badge guide for the Heart of England and a Green Badge guide for Oxford, and the author of Offbeat Cotswolds, a book of nearly 400 strange tales and surprising sights from the region. Before guiding he was a teacher and a children's author with around 60 books to his name, which is why he explains things so well without ever making it feel like a lesson.
Through the week Sean will be with us on the walks and in the villages, filling in the story of the places we pass through. He'll take us inside the wool churches and explain why they're so grand for such small towns, show us how to read the stone in the buildings, and point out the odd details in the market halls and high streets that give the real history away. Expect the surprising stuff too, the drunken parsons, the strange deaths and the inventions that started here. He's the kind of guide who makes you look twice at a place you thought you'd already seen.
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Charlie Markwick
Charlie Markwick is a Cotswold-born storyteller, spoken-word artist and poet who has performed across the UK and Europe. He also leads storytelling courses for adults and children. His Cotswold childhood continues to find its way into his writing, wherever his travels take him. Charlie has created three one-man shows, including Orienteering, which explores his experience of caring for his late wife through dementia. He now lives in rural southern France, once again immersed in the seasonal rhythms that shaped his early life.
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Morrris Dancers
The Chipping Campden Morris Dancers are one of only four traditional Cotswold sides with an unbroken history, and records of a side in the town go back to the 1700s. Their dances are unique to Campden and are passed down from one generation to the next, and no other side performs them, something the wider morris community respects. The tradition is kept deliberately unpublished, so the only way to see it properly is to be there. They dance through spring and summer, with the big moments of the year being Dover's Games and Scuttlebrook Wake on the first weekend of June, when they pull the Scuttlebrook Queen through town on a decorated dray. The side today includes several generations of the same families, which tells you most of what you need to know about how seriously Campden takes its own story.
A glimpse of two days on this retreat…
Day 1
Chipping Campden to Broadway.
The first miles of the Cotswold Way, up the day's one real climb to Dover's Hill, where sixteen counties are said to lie in view on a clear day.
Weather willing, lunch is a hamper on the lawn at Broadway Tower, among the resident deer.
That evening, a folklorist by the fire on beacons, bones and boundary stones, and the fires once lit on the tower.
Day 2
The Slad Valley.
Laurie Lee's own country: beech hangers and old commons, ending at the churchyard where he lies, opposite the pub he loved.
Lunch at The Woolpack, then a private tasting at Uley Brewery, where head brewer Ken Lush pours the Old Spot and sings for the party in the vaulted cellar where the ale is made.
Ale and song together, in the place both are made.
The Pubs
Lunch is a pub, most days, and it is the one we have walked to rather than the one we drove past. That changes how a pint tastes and is most of the point. Low beams and flagstones, a fire lit whatever the month, dogs asleep under the settle, and a landlord who knows why the lane behind the church is called what it is.
The Woolpack at Slad is the one everyone knows, Laurie Lee's own, where his ashes lie in the churchyard opposite and his poems are on the wall. We take a long lunch there on the Slad Valley day. The rest are the ones you would only find if a Brit took you, which is the arrangement here.
Along the way…
Private folklore talks and ghost stories by the fire
Wool-felting and weaving workshops with Cotswold makers
The history of the buildings, the stone and the wool churches, read on the ground
A private tasting flight at Cotswolds Distillery
And the Uley Brewery cellar, ale and song where both are made.
Where you’ll stay
Two houses, one for each half of the week, chosen so you wake near the day’s walking rather than drive to it.
For the first half, The Rectory at Burford is ours alone.
This Grade II-listed, 17th-century parsonage combines rustic beams, sash windows and open fireplaces with nine spacious bedrooms, a wood-fired sauna, hot tub and cinema room. Just off Burford High Street, it places both town and countryside at your doorstep.
Then west to The Painswick.
A Palladian former rectory on the edge of the “Queen of the Cotswolds,” The Painswick has long windows overlooking the Stroud valleys and a spa tucked into its old cellars. From here, Laurie Lee’s country—and the walk through it—lies close at hand.
Both stays are luxurious in the way we love best: with a fire and a dog, rather than a marble lobby.
FAQs
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Four to eight miles, on paths rather than roads, with a long lunch in the middle. Moderate rather than hard, but it is hills, and the Cotswold escarpment is steeper than photographs suggest.
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Then you do not. The coach is on the route every day and will pick you up at the halfway point or take you straight to lunch. There are gentler options every day.
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No. There is very good beer and gin on this week and nobody will mind in the slightest if you have none of it. The brewery and the distillery are as interesting sober, and there will be good alcohol-free options throughout, at the tastings and at the table.
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No. Pubs & Pathways is open to everyone, 18 and over.
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No. Your bags move between the two houses without you. You walk with a day pack holding water, a waterproof and lunch if we are not stopping.
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It may, at some point, and we walk anyway. Bring boots that are properly broken in and a waterproof that actually works, and the rest is atmosphere. If a day turns genuinely foul we shorten it and spend longer indoors with someone interesting.
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Press Book. You will be taken into our booking area, where a deposit reserves your place and the balance falls due nearer the time. If you would rather talk first, book a call instead and we will take it from there
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All accommodation and meals for the retreat, and all drinks except alcohol. Every session and activity, all local travel and entries once you are with us, a welcome pack, and our planning and support throughout. In short, everything from the moment you arrive to the moment you leave.
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International flights, travel to the meeting point, travel and medical insurance, alcohol, and any treatments or add-on activities offered on that particular retreat. Where a retreat offers treatment add-ons, they are booked and paid for separately and the balance falls due ninety days before you travel, alongside the rest.
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Yes, and many do. All are welcome.
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No. Every retreat has a single supplement for a room of your own. Twin sharing is there if you would prefer it, and if you are coming with a friend we will put you together.
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Fit enough for a comfortable few hours on your feet, on uneven ground, at a pace that suits the slowest person rather than the quickest. There are gentler options every single day. If you are unsure, speak to us and describe your usual week honestly. After a call we will advise on the fitness level required and which activities would suit you
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Tell us on the questionnaire after booking and the kitchen will work around you. Vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, allergies, the lot. The chefs at our retreat locations are used to it and would rather know well in advance than on the night
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Yes. Valid travel insurance is required, and must cover you for the full duration of the retreat, including emergency medical treatment, hospitalisation and evacuation.
We also strongly recommend that your policy covers delay, interruption, cancellation and lost luggage, and in particular that you take a Cancel For Any Reason policy.
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A non-refundable deposit of $1,000 per person secures your place. The remaining balance is due 90 days before the retreat begins, along with any add-ons you have chosen.
If you need to cancel, 91 days or more before the retreat you lose the deposit only, and we will convert it into a credit toward any of our retreats, valid for 12 months. Between 90 and 61 days, a quarter of the total price is non-refundable. Between 60 and 31 days, half is non-refundable. At 30 days or less, the full price is non-refundable.
And a promise: if we are able to fill your place after you cancel, we will refund everything you have paid beyond your deposit and a $250 administration fee, no matter when you cancelled.
If we ever have to cancel a retreat and cannot reschedule it, you get a full refund within thirty days.
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Yes, and we would encourage it. We can arrange a bespoke trip or a curated itinerary for before or after. Just tell us when you book, or any time up to a month before you travel.
Is there an age requirement?
Guests must be 18 or over.
Join what you want and skip what you do not. If you would rather spend an afternoon in the garden with a book than get on the minibus, that is a perfectly good day.
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Any retreat can be extended with a bespoke trip or a curated itinerary, before it or after it. A few days in London first, the Highlands afterwards, or simply two slow nights somewhere good to get over the flight. Just tell us when you book, or any time up to a month before you travel, and we will build it around the week you have already chosen.
