What is Chipping Campden famous for?

Its long, curving High Street of medieval and Tudor wool-trade houses, said to be the finest in the Cotswolds, its 1627 Market Hall, its Arts and Crafts heritage from C. R. Ashbee's guild, and being the northern start of the Cotswold Way.

What is the Market Hall?

An open stone arcade built in the middle of the High Street in 1627 by Sir Baptist Hicks, to give the market traders shelter. It is owned by the National Trust now and free to walk through, and it is the most photographed building in the town.

What are the Cotswold Olimpicks?

A country games held on Dover's Hill above the town, begun around 1612 by the lawyer Robert Dover and still run once a year on the Friday after the late-May bank holiday. The events include tug of war and the famous, painful shin-kicking.

Is Chipping Campden worth visiting?

Yes. The High Street alone is worth the trip, the Market Hall and church are free, and Hidcote and Kiftsgate gardens and the Cotswold Way are all close by, so there is more than an afternoon in it.

Things to Do in Chipping Campden, Cotswolds: A Local Field Guide

Chipping Campden has the loveliest high street in the Cotswolds, a long gentle curve of wool-money houses spanning four centuries, with the 1627 Market Hall at its heart. Here is what is worth doing in Chipping Campden, when to come, and the older town that sits behind the famous frontage.

At a glance

Where: Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, in the north Cotswolds. Nearest town and station Moreton-in-Marsh, about eight miles south.
Best time to visit: Most of the year is gentle. The town is busiest around the Cotswold Olimpick Games, held the Friday after the late-May bank holiday.
How long to spend: Half a day for the town. A full day with Hidcote and Kiftsgate gardens, or a stretch of the Cotswold Way.
Parking: Free roadside parking and a small free car park off the lower High Street, with paid spaces around the Square; the central spaces are time-limited.
Getting there: No station in the town. Nearest is Moreton-in-Marsh, about eight miles off, direct from London Paddington in around ninety minutes, then a bus or taxi. By car, off the A44 or the B4081.
Dog friendly: Yes. The High Street, Dover's Hill and the Cotswold Way all take dogs on leads.
Family friendly: Yes, gently. There is open hill country at Dover's Hill and two great gardens nearby, but no attractions of the Bourton kind.

Things to do in Chipping Campden

The Market Hall

The open stone arcade in the middle of the High Street, built in 1627 by Sir Baptist Hicks to shelter the traders selling butter, cheese and poultry. The cobbled floor is believed to be original. Local people bought it in the 1940s to stop it being sold abroad and gave it to the National Trust, which keeps it now, free to walk through.

St James' Church

A great medieval wool church at the north end of the town, paid for by the merchants whose money built Campden, with the memorial brasses and monuments of men like William Grevel, called the flower of the wool merchants of all England.

Grevel House

Grevel's own house, built around 1380 and still standing on the High Street, a reminder that the loveliest street in the Cotswolds was made by trade long before it was made by visitors.

The Arts and Crafts heritage

In 1902 the designer C. R. Ashbee moved his Guild of Handicraft out of the East End of London to the old silk mill on Sheep Street, and Campden became a centre of the Arts and Crafts movement. The Hart family of silversmiths, who came with the guild, have worked in the town without a break ever since. The Court Barn Museum tells the story.

Dover's Hill and the Cotswold Olimpicks

On the escarpment above the town, a natural amphitheatre called Dover's Hill has hosted a country games since about 1612, begun by the lawyer Robert Dover with the king's blessing. The Cotswold Olimpicks still run there once a year, shin-kicking and all. The hill is National Trust land, and the view is worth the climb on any day.

Hidcote and Kiftsgate gardens

A few miles out at Hidcote Bartrim are two of the finest gardens in England, side by side: Hidcote Manor, the National Trust's famous Arts and Crafts garden of outdoor rooms made by Lawrence Johnston, and the privately owned Kiftsgate Court next door, open through the summer.

Visiting Chipping Campden: parking, getting there, when to go

Chipping Campden lies in the north Cotswolds off the A44, strung along its one curving High Street, which is the thing to walk slowly from end to end. It is also the northern end of the Cotswold Way, the hundred-mile path along the escarpment to Bath, so walkers gather here early in the day.

Parking is a mix. There is free roadside parking and a small free car park off the lower end of the High Street, with paid, time-limited spaces around the Square in the centre. Read the signs, as the tariffs and limits change.

The town has no railway station. The nearest is Moreton-in-Marsh, about eight miles off, with direct trains from London Paddington in around ninety minutes, then a bus or a taxi for the last stretch; Stratford-upon-Avon is a short drive to the north.

The town is busiest on summer weekends and around the Olimpick games. A weekday, or the shoulder months, gives you the High Street at its best.

Where to eat, drink & stay

The Eight Bells, on Church Street, is the old favourite: a fourteenth-century inn that once housed the masons building the church, with low beams, a few rooms and a proper kitchen.

The Noel Arms, a former coaching inn with an archway off the High Street, is the larger, older hotel in the middle of things.

The Lygon Arms here, not to be confused with its grander namesake in Broadway, is the long-standing family-run inn on the High Street, the easy place for a pint and a plate.

Chipping Campden questions, answered

What is Chipping Campden famous for?: Its long, curving High Street of medieval and Tudor wool-trade houses, said to be the finest in the Cotswolds, its 1627 Market Hall, its Arts and Crafts heritage from C. R. Ashbee's guild, and being the northern start of the Cotswold Way.
What is the Market Hall?: An open stone arcade built in the middle of the High Street in 1627 by Sir Baptist Hicks, to give the market traders shelter. It is owned by the National Trust now and free to walk through, and it is the most photographed building in the town.
What are the Cotswold Olimpicks?: A country games held on Dover's Hill above the town, begun around 1612 by the lawyer Robert Dover and still run once a year on the Friday after the late-May bank holiday. The events include tug of war and the famous, painful shin-kicking.
Is Chipping Campden worth visiting?: Yes. The High Street alone is worth the trip, the Market Hall and church are free, and Hidcote and Kiftsgate gardens and the Cotswold Way are all close by, so there is more than an afternoon in it.

The High Street is the picture, and the lanes that run off it climb quickly into a quieter town: walled gardens, old workshops, houses set back where the boots never turn.

Behind the famous street the same rule holds as everywhere in this country. The houses with the deepest histories are the ones that say the least about themselves.

The story moves through this world. Begin Chapter One →