Estate village, escarpment country
Buckland
Buckland pairs a close-knit historic group with a steep escarpment landscape, one country-house table and walking through neighbouring stone villages.
- Village table
- Buckland Manor
- Historic focus
- St Michael’s painted medieval roof
- Landscape
- Below Burhill on the Cotswold escarpment
The Fox verdict
Come for the church and escarpment; stay for the manor table.
Buckland is a small estate village where the manor, church and rectory form an unusually concentrated historic group beneath Burhill.
The strongest visit combines St Michael’s painted medieval roof with the climb towards Burhill or the longer Broadway–Stanton–Laverton circuit. Buckland Manor supplies the village’s confirmed food and drink, while Snowshill Manor and Broadway Tower broaden a nearby history-led day.
Where to go
Places in Buckland
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesBuckland Manor
A country-house hotel serving seasonal cooking shaped by Vale of Evesham produce, with herbs grown in the manor grounds and lounge, dinner, Sunday lunch, children’s and afternoon-tea menus.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1½ hours for a meal or afternoon tea.
- Locality
- Buckland village
- Access
- Menus are samples and may change with the seasons.
Burhill Hillfort
An Iron Age univallate promontory hillfort where little of the rampart remains beyond a north-eastern section; archaeological work records evidence of early Iron Age occupation.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour.
- Locality
- On a spur of the Cotswold escarpment
Broadway–Stanton–Laverton–Buckland Circular
An easy/moderate circular across meadows and open fields, beside a coppice on the Cotswold Way, past Buckland Wood and Shenberrow Hill, through Stanton and Laverton, and steeply through woods onto Burhill.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow about 4 hours 50 minutes.
- Locality
- Broadway, Stanton, Laverton and Buckland
History & heritage
3 placesChurch of St Michael
A Grade I church with unplastered walls, medieval tiles, a holy-water stoup, rood-screen stair remains and a four-bay nave roof retaining painted medieval decoration.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes.
- Locality
- Buckland
- Access
- Active worship is confirmed, but general visitor-opening arrangements are not established.
Laverton “Miles without Stiles” Route
A Cotswolds National Landscape self-guided route built around local history in Laverton and Buckland.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1¼ hours for a short outing.
- Locality
- Laverton and Buckland
Broadway Tower
James Wyatt’s turreted “Saxon Tower”, conceived by Capability Brown and completed in 1798, with a history that includes Sir Thomas Phillipps’s printing press and Arts and Crafts visitors including William Morris.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour.
- Locality
- On the escarpment
Things to do
1 placeSnowshill Manor and Garden
A National Trust property filled with Charles Wade’s collection of handmade objects, with an Arts and Crafts garden of outdoor rooms, Wolf’s Cove model harbour, a café and a second-hand bookshop.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 2 hours.
- Locality
- Near Broadway
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Three ways to explore Buckland
Signature outings
Find the colour in St Michael’s roof
The four-bay nave roof still carries painted medieval decoration above an interior of unplastered walls, medieval tiles and surviving fittings.
Follow Charles Wade’s collection
Move from a house filled with handmade objects into Arts and Crafts garden rooms and the small model harbour of Wolf’s Cove.
Read the Saxon Tower’s story
James Wyatt’s turreted landmark was conceived by Capability Brown, completed in 1798 and later connected with a printing press and Arts and Crafts visitors.
The village story
A manor village beneath the escarpment
Buckland’s story runs from a seasonal country-house kitchen and a painted medieval church to Mary Delany’s paper flowers, Burhill and the long walk through its neighbouring villages.
The Manor Table
Buckland has one place to eat, and it is a country-house hotel. Buckland Manor grows herbs in its own grounds and takes most of its produce from the Vale of Evesham, a few miles north; the head chef, Joe Cerrato, builds the menus around what the season allows. The menus are seasonal samples, but they give the measure of the kitchen: Gloucestershire Old Spot charcuterie with pickles, Ryland lamb shoulder with confit carrot and lamb jus, Cornish sole with baby leeks, mussels and Champagne sauce, and a dessert listed as Milk & Buckland Honey, made with mead junket, burnt honey and milk crumble. The hotel describes its dining rooms as "intimate, calm and quietly celebratory."
There is a Sunday lunch, an afternoon tea, and a children's menu that runs to a beef burger with Cheddar and fries, sausages with mash, peas and gravy, and fresh pasta with tomato sauce or pesto. What there is not is a pub, a shop or a bakery. Buckland is a small estate village, and the manor is where you eat and drink.
Church, Manor and Rectory
The Church of St Michael stands close by, forming a tight group with the manor and the rectory. It is worth going inside for the roof: a four-bay nave with tie-beam trusses that still carry their painted medieval decoration. The walls are left unplastered. There are medieval tiles in the south aisle, a holy-water stoup by the door, the worn remains of a rood-screen stair, and a fifteenth-century cope in the north aisle. A marble monument to James Thynne, who died in 1709, is the finest thing of its date here. The fabric runs from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth, with further work in 1585 and the seventeenth century, and F. S. Waller restored the church in 1885. Book of Common Prayer Evensong is said on the first Sunday of most months.
The rectory beside it dates to about 1480 and remains a private dwelling; Detmar Blow altered it in 1932. The manor, the church and the rectory stand close together, which is a good deal of listed stone for a village this small.
Mary Delany and the Escarpment
The manor's most unexpected resident arrived long before it took in guests. Mary Delany spent several years here as a girl in the early eighteenth century. In her seventies she began cutting paper into flowers, and made 985 botanical collages of extraordinary precision; most of them went to the British Museum in 1897.
The real reason to base yourself here is the walking. Buckland sits directly below Burhill on the Cotswold escarpment, and the ground rises steeply behind the houses. A 7.5-mile circular from Broadway takes in Stanton and Laverton, both stone villages, and passes through Buckland on the way. It crosses meadows, climbs beside a coppice on the Cotswold Way, skirts Buckland Wood and Shenberrow Hill, drops down to Stanton, and finishes with a stiff wooded climb onto Burhill; allow the best part of five hours. Burhill is an Iron Age hillfort, though little of the rampart survives now, and the spur it stands on overlooks the village and the valley beyond.
Domesday and Nearby Landmarks
The manor belonged to Gloucester Abbey at the time of Domesday, when Buckland had thirty-six households and ten acres of meadow, and its annual value to the lord had risen from three pounds in 1066 to nine by 1086.
Broadway is the obvious neighbour, immediately north and the start of that circular walk. Snowshill Manor, a National Trust house crammed with one man's collection of handmade objects, is close by, with a café, a second-hand bookshop and a model harbour called Wolf's Cove for children. Broadway Tower, James Wyatt's turreted "Saxon Tower," conceived by Capability Brown and completed in 1798, stands on the escarpment in its own park.
Arriving for the Walks
The nearest station is Honeybourne, managed by Great Western Railway, with step-free access and parking. Otherwise Buckland is reached by minor roads south of Broadway, and Pulhams' 606 bus stops at Buckland Turn on the Chipping Campden to Cheltenham route; check the current timetable for days and times.
Walking is a strong reason to base yourself here.
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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.
- Buckland Manor — bucklandmanor.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Church of St Michael — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Burhill Hillfort — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Laverton “Miles without Stiles” Route — cotswolds-nl.org.uk other published source
- Broadway–Stanton–Laverton–Buckland Circular — broadway-cotswolds.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Snowshill Manor and Garden — nationaltrust.org.uk national body or asset manager
- Broadway Tower — broadwaytower.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation