Mickleton and Hidcote Manor Garden

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Our view

"Exploring two early 20th-century gardens of international repute"

Walk directions

With your back to the church, turn right up a bank to reach a kissing gate to the left of Cowland Orchard. Continue diagonally right across a field to a kissing gate at a thicket. Follow a path through trees and go through another kissing gate to emerge into a field. Follow its left margin to reach a kissing gate at the end.

In the next field, go slightly right to a gate in the top corner. Cross a road and go up some steps to a gate. Turn right to walk around the edge of the field as it bears left. After 250yds (229m), take a path among trees, a steep bank eventually appearing down to the right. The path brings you to a field and then a Dutch barn.

At the barn turn left, briefly joining a semi-surfaced track to the left. On the far side of a hedge, turn right and follow the edge of a field to the bottom corner. Go through a gap to a bridge with a stile on each side over a stream, cross and turn left.

Follow the margin of the field as it goes right and then right again. Continue until you come to a gateway on the left. Go through this and walk until you reach a field gate at a road. Walk ahead through Hidcote Boyce. Where the road goes right, stay ahead to pass Top Farm.

Beyond a kissing gate, take a rising track along the edge of successive fields. Nearing the top, follow the track through a gate, and bear left and then right around a hedge and head for a field gate at the top of the slope. In an area of grassy mounds, stay to the left of a barn and head for a gate in the top-left corner.

Follow the path to a road. Turn sharp left to follow the lesser road. Immediately before a radio mast, turn left onto a track and follow this all the way down to pass through Hidcote Manor Garden’s car park entrance. Go straight on for 30 paces to turn left through a gate, and then immediately right to walk a path parallel to the road with Hidcote’s trees on your left. Walk through a beech copse, enter a field through a kissing gate and cross it to a gate on the far side.

At the road, turn right and then, before Kiftsgate Court, turn left through a gate and descend through a field. Pass through some trees and follow the left-hand side of the next field, through a gate and left around another field, until you come to a stile on the left. Ignore a footbridge to your left. Follow the edge of the next field to a gate. Go through this and head towards Mickleton Church and a path between walled graveyards to return to the start via a gate.

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Location

Nearest postcode:

Additional information

Terrain - Fields, firm tracks, possibly some muddy woodland

Landscape - Woodland, open hills and villages

Dog friendliness - On lead in livestock fields, good open stretches elsewhere; dogs not allowed in Kiftsgate Court

Parking - Free car park at church, Mickleton

Toilets en route - None on route

Walks in Gloucestershire Dog-friendly walks in Gloucestershire

About the walk

This walk takes you within striking distance of two of the finest planned gardens in the country. The first, Kiftsgate Court, is the lesser known of the two, but nonetheless demands a visit. The house itself is primarily Victorian, but the garden was created immediately after World War I by Heather...

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Been on this walk?

Send us photos or a comment about this route. Or recommend a route of your own.

Find out more

Walking in Safety

Read our tips to look after yourself and the environment when following this walk.

Learn more

Get an AA guide

Explore our range of ‘50 Walks in’ guides - they’re the ideal companion for a ramble.

Learn more

About the area

Gloucestershire is home to a variety of landscapes, including the Cotswolds, a region of gentle hills, valleys and gem-like villages that roll through the county. To their west is the Severn Plain, watered by Britain’s longest river and characterised by orchards and farms marked out by hedgerows that blaze with mayflower in the spring; beyond the Severn are the Forest of Dean and the Wye Valley.