A place in the world
Stow-on-the-Wold
Stow-on-the-Wold sits highest of the Cotswold wool towns, around eight hundred feet up where the roads meet on a market square that has kept its counsel for a thousand years. Here is what is worth doing in Stow, when to come, and the quieter town that stays once the coaches have gone.
At a glance
- Where
- Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, the highest of the wool towns at around eight hundred feet, where the A429 Fosse Way meets the A424 and A436.
- Best time to visit
- Most of the year is gentler here than at Bourton or Bibury. Avoid the two Stow Horse Fair days in May and October, which bring heavy traffic, unless the fair is what you have come for.
- How long to spend
- A few hours: the square, the church, the antiques shops and a pub. Longer if you are buying.
- Parking
- Limited time-restricted spaces on the square, a pay-and-display car park on Maugersbury Road, and free long-stay parking by the supermarket a short walk out. Note the Stow car parks charge on Sundays, unlike most in the district.
- Getting there
- Nearest station Moreton-in-Marsh, about four miles off, direct from London Paddington in around ninety minutes, with an hourly bus on to the square. By car, on the Fosse Way.
- Dog friendly
- Yes. The square and the walks around the town take dogs, and several of the inns welcome them.
- Family friendly
- Yes, in a quieter way than Bourton. This is a market town to wander rather than a place of set-piece attractions.
Things to do in Stow-on-the-Wold
The Market Square
The broad square is the whole town, and has held a market since a royal charter of 1107. At the height of the wool trade as many as twenty thousand sheep are said to have changed hands here in a single day. The stalls have gone to cafés and antiques shops now, but the shape of the old trade is still legible in the stone.
St Edward's Church and the Tolkien door
The parish church stands just off the square, and its north door is the photograph: an old wooden door set between two ancient yews that have grown up around the frame, looking for all the world like the entrance to somewhere in a story. It is widely said to have inspired Tolkien's doors of Moria. Stow's own civic society is honest that this is only a rumour and nobody has proved it, which is the right way to tell it. Inside, the church held Royalist prisoners after the last battle of the first Civil War was fought on the edge of the town in 1646.
The medieval stocks
On the little green at the edge of the square stand the old wooden stocks, where the town once punished its own. The inn beside them, the Old Stocks, takes its name from them.
The tures
Running off the square are the tures, narrow alleys cut between the buildings so that sheep could be funnelled into the market a few at a time. They are the most atmospheric corners of the town and the easiest to walk straight past.
The antiques shops
Stow is one of the antiques capitals of the Cotswolds, and the trade is the reason much of the town's frontage survives as it does. Half a day can go on the dealers' windows alone, from country furniture to the genuinely grand.
Stow Horse Fair
Twice a year, in May and October, the Stow Horse Fair comes to fields off the Maugersbury road, a gathering of the Gypsy and Traveller communities reaching back to a charter of 1476. It fills the town and the roads around it. Come for it deliberately, or come on another day.
Visiting Stow-on-the-Wold: parking, getting there, when to go
Stow sits at the top of the wolds where the Fosse Way meets two other main roads, which is what made it a market and what makes it busy in season. The town is small and the square is the centre of it; everything worth seeing is a few minutes' walk apart.
Parking takes a little thought. There are limited time-restricted spaces on the square itself, a pay-and-display car park on Maugersbury Road, and free long-stay parking by the supermarket a short walk from the centre. Unusually for the district, the Stow car parks charge on a Sunday, so read the signs.
Without a car, the nearest station is Moreton-in-Marsh, about four miles away, with direct trains from London Paddington in around ninety minutes; an hourly bus runs on from the station to the square in about twenty minutes.
Stow is at its best out of the high season and well clear of the two fair days. Come back when the shops have shut and the town tells you less, which is how it prefers things.
Where to eat, drink & stay
The Queen's Head, on the square, is the locals' pub: a Donnington Brewery house pouring the beer brewed a few miles off at the watermill, where the regulars and the visitors mix.
The Porch House bills itself as the oldest inn in England, with a date of 947 over the claim. Historians doubt the year, but the building is genuinely ancient, and it is a good place to eat and to stay.
The Old Stocks Inn, a seventeenth-century coaching inn on the green by the stocks, is the smarter option, a small hotel with a good kitchen and a terrace over the square.
Stow-on-the-Wold questions, answered
- What is Stow-on-the-Wold famous for?
- Being the highest of the Cotswold wool towns, its large market square and a market dating back to 1107, its antique shops, the twice-yearly Stow Horse Fair, and the much-photographed Tolkien door at St Edward's Church.
- Is the church door really the inspiration for Tolkien's doors of Moria?
- It is a local tradition rather than a proven fact. The two ancient yews grown around the north door of St Edward's give it the look of a door from a story, and the claim has stuck, but Stow's own civic society says plainly it has never been authenticated.
- What is the Porch House?
- An inn on the square that bills itself as the oldest in England, traditionally dated to the year 947. The exact date is disputed by historians, but the building is very old, and it works today as a pub and hotel.
- Is Stow-on-the-Wold worth visiting?
- Yes, and it is an easier visit than the honeypot villages. It is a working market town rather than a single photograph, best for antiques, a long lunch and a wander, and quietest out of season and away from the fair days.
What stays is quieter. Shops with rooms above them, and lamps that come on behind first-floor curtains after the last car has left. The people who matter here are rarely the ones on the square at noon.
Come back when the shops have shut, and the town tells you less. That is how it prefers things.
The story moves through this world. Begin Chapter One →