Valley paths and village life
Avening
A deep, curving Cotswold valley where a Norman church, shared community spaces and two very different walks reward an unhurried visit.
- Best for
- Valley walking and Norman architecture
- Give it
- An hour for the parish circuit or half a day for the long walk
- Don't miss
- Holy Cross's chevron doorway on twisted shafts
The Fox verdict
A lived-in valley with real depth
Avening brings together a Norman church, shared community spaces and walks of one hour or four and a half hours.
Come for the choice between a one-hour parish circuit and the 7.5-mile Gatcombe route, then make time for Holy Cross, the community orchard and the Bell. The village's cloth-making past and Pig Face Day tradition give those stops a history that reaches beyond scenery alone.
Where to go
Places in Avening
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Bell Inn
A friendly exposed-stone community local and Avening's only operating pub, with British and Indian food, real ales and a garden.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- High Street
Avening Community Café
An inclusive meeting place serving drinks alongside sweet and savoury cakes and biscuits made by volunteers.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- at Avening Social Club
- Access
- A weekly community café; special dietary requests can be accommodated.
Avening Recreation Ground
A recreation ground with a playing field and children's play area, next to the community orchard.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- off Rectory Lane
Walks & outdoors
2 placesGet to Know Avening
A parish circuit through Woodstock Lane, the churchyard, an old packhorse trail, Pound Hill, the playing field and the valley brook.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around one hour
- Locality
- through Avening
Avening: Gatcombe View and Secluded Valley
An official circular climbing for views over the Gatcombe Estate, crossing Chavenage Green and returning through a quiet hidden valley.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around four and a half hours
- Locality
- from the Bell across Chavenage Green
- Access
- Graded for moderate fitness because of possible steep slopes.
History & heritage
1 placeChurch of the Holy Cross
A Grade I church with a late 11th-century core, a Norman chevron doorway on twisted shafts, medieval work and Christopher Whall windows.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- in Avening
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Three ways to explore Avening
Signature outings
Indian food and real ale
Pair the Bell's British and Indian food with its regular Timothy Taylor Landlord or one of three changing beers.
Norman craft at Holy Cross
Study the large chevron-carved Norman doorway resting on twisted shafts.
Gatcombe views and a hidden valley
Follow the 7.5-mile circular from the Bell for views over Gatcombe Estate, then cross Chavenage Green and return through a quiet hidden valley.
The village story
Avening Village Guide
The village's pub, orchard, deep curving valley and Norman church introduce a place shaped by shared spaces and cloth-making.
The Bell and shared village life
The Bell stands on the High Street behind exposed stone and bay windows, with a wood-burner going through the cold months and sport on the television in the corner. It is the only pub still open in Avening, and its kitchen is run in partnership with a local Indian restaurant, so the menu has run further than most village pubs manage: past dishes have included lamb, garlic prawns, a medium chicken curry and lamb rogan josh. There is Timothy Taylor Landlord on permanently, three changing beers alongside it, often Butcombe's Adam Henson's Rare Breed, a garden out the back, and dogs welcome at the bar. The local CAMRA branch calls it "quietly addictive and quite difficult to leave," which is roughly what a bar with a chatty crowd tends to earn.
Beyond the Bell, village life runs through shared spaces rather than a shopfront. A weekly community café operates out of the Social Club, started in 2018, pouring tea and coffee and putting out cakes and biscuits made by volunteers, with dietary requests taken. In the play park nearby there is a pocket orchard, twenty-one fruit trees planted in 2021 at the instigation of a resident ecologist, Phoebe Carter, and anyone may pick from them. The varieties are heritage Gloucestershire apples and plums: Ashmead's Kernel, Hunt's Duke of Gloucester, Czar, and a plum recorded here as the Shit Smock. The grassland left unimproved beneath the trees holds orchids, grass snakes, slow worms and the Dingy Skipper butterfly, and there are benches, picnic space and the occasional juicing event. Next door, the recreation ground off Rectory Lane has a playing field and a children's play area.
From enclosed lanes to open plateau
The village sits in a deep, curving valley with open plateau above it, and the centre alternates between tight stone-walled lanes and sudden views across meadows and wooded slopes. A stream runs beside, and sometimes through, the cottage gardens near Woodstock Lane. Steps Lane climbs steeply from tree cover to open country, and the tower of the Church of the Holy Cross fills many of the westward views.
Walkers have a choice of distance. From the Bell a 7.5-mile circular climbs for views over the Gatcombe Estate, crosses Chavenage Green and returns through a quiet hidden valley; allow around four and a half hours and expect some steep slopes. For an hour on foot, a parish circuit threads Woodstock Lane, the churchyard, an old packhorse trail, Pound Hill and a surviving Second World War pillbox before dropping to the valley brook. A separate trail traces the village's former drinking houses — the New Inn, Rising Sun, Nag's Head, Butcher's Arms and the old Cross among them — most of them now private homes the walker is asked to respect.
Norman stone, local legend and cloth
The church earns the attention it gets. A large Norman doorway of chevron carving rests on twisted shafts, and inside there is a Norman arcade and chancel arch, a fourteenth-century timber wagon roof, a holy table dated 1657 and two windows by Christopher Whall from around 1908. In the north transept kneels the effigy of Henry Brydges, who lived at Avening Court and received a royal pardon for piracy from James I in 1611. Local tradition says Queen Matilda instigated the building, consecrated around 1080, and gives the village its oddest survival: Pig Face Day, a church procession carrying a pig's head followed by a feast. In the 1950s the Bell's landlords Joyce and Ernie Moss revived it and reportedly made more than a thousand sandwiches from twelve pigs' heads.
The place is older and was once busier than it looks. Domesday recorded sixty households, five mills and an annual value of twenty-seven pounds, which put Avening among the larger settlements of its day. Its later shape came from cloth: mills and cottage weaving from the seventeenth century well into the nineteenth, leaving the High Street its rows of former mill buildings.
Connections and remembrance
Getting here is simplest by road along the B4014 between Tetbury and Nailsworth. The Stagecoach 620 links the village with Tetbury, Minchinhampton and Stroud, the nearest railhead, and some journeys carry on to Westonbirt Arboretum, an easy day out for its 2,500 types of tree and shrub, treetop walkway and Gruffalo trail.
On the wall of the Memorial Hall, a tablet lists forty-two men lost in the First World War and ten in the Second. Among those who went was the Reverend Edward Fowles, a former missionary in China, sent to France with the Chinese Labour Battalions because he was one of the few who knew the language and the customs.
Stay around Cotswolds
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Cotswolds, linked directly to their property pages.
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Bell Inn — thebellinnavening.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Avening Community Café — avening-pc.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Church of the Holy Cross — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Avening Recreation Ground — avening-pc.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Get to Know Avening — avening-pc.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Avening: Gatcombe View and Secluded Valley — cotswolds-nl.org.uk other published source