Broadwell

Green, Ford and Fox

A tributary of the Evenlode crosses Broadwell’s wide green, and the road fords it rather than bridging it. Cotswold-stone cottages ring the open space, while the land rises towards Stow-on-the-Wold, about a mile and a half south over the hill. Lord Ashton donated the green to the village in the late 20th century, and its public seats make an easy picnic stop.

The Fox Inn sits on the green, with a cosy bar, restaurant and large beer garden. Peter Creed and Tom Noest serve simple British pub food, including offal and game in season. Menus have featured steak frites, a whole roast chicken to share with triple-cooked chips, Conygree Farm salad and aioli, and fondue for two. Nearby Donnington Brewery owns the pub and supplies its traditional English ales. At Donnington, the River Dikler turns a large waterwheel beside the Cotswold Voluntary Wardens’ walking circuit from Stow.

Walking Routes and Onward Links

The Cotswold Voluntary Wardens’ roughly four-hour circuit from Stow threads through Maugersbury, Lower and Upper Swell, Donnington and Broadwell on the Macmillan Way, bridleways and footpaths, passing the River Dikler and the village churchyard. The 6.8-mile Broadwell–Oddingtons–Broadwell circuit by Ron and Jenny Glynn crosses fields, trees and streams between Lower and Upper Oddington; it also uses narrow lanes where cars can move quickly, so keep dogs on the lead by the road. Stow is the nearest market town for shops and services, reachable on foot over the hill. Daylesford Organic at Kingham has a farmshop, café, bakery and creamery.

St Paul’s Through the Centuries

The Church of St Paul is Grade II* listed. The nave and chancel keep 12th-century fabric, the south aisle and its four-bay arcade are 13th century, the three-stage tower is 15th, and the whole was restored in the 1860s. Set into the walls is a reused 12th-century tympanum carved with rosettes, interlocking semicircles and a chequerboard pattern, and the porch holds a possibly Saxo-Norman fragment among pieces of medieval grave-slab. Inside there is a 14th-century piscina, an early-15th-century quatrefoil font, and alabaster figures of Herbert Weston, who died in 1635, kneeling with his wife and child. In the churchyard stands a group of 17th-century bale tombs, one carved with four kneeling mourners on each of its sides.

Abbey, Domesday and Manor

Broadwell belonged to Evesham Abbey for more than eight hundred years, starting with a gift from Cenred of Mercia in 708. A 13th-century manor rent was set at 900 eggs, twelve cooking pots and threepence. In the Domesday Book the place appears as Bradewelle, held by the abbey in Salmonsbury hundred, with 53 recorded households and a value of £12, up from £8 twenty years earlier. The Grade II* Manor House keeps a 17th-century wing but was rebuilt after a fire in 1757 by Mary Chamberlayne and her husband, Dr Thomas Chamberlayne, and a Roman villa site, a scheduled monument, lies 275 metres north-west of the church.

Arriving in Broadwell

Moreton-in-Marsh is the nearest practical main-line railway station, with parking, taxis and step-free access to both platforms. By road, Broadwell lies just east of the A429, the old Fosse Way.