High-wold village life
Guiting Power
A broad green, distinctive places to eat, official country walks and a church with remarkable Norman details.
- Best for
- Official walks, village food and Norman church details
- Walk time
- About 2½ hours for Castlett or 3–3½ hours for Naunton
- Don't miss
- The chevroned north doorway at St Michael and All Angels
The Fox verdict
A small village with food, footpaths and deep local history
Guiting Power combines a broad green and unusually varied food stops with two official walks into the surrounding Cotswold landscape.
Start at the green for a café and the official walking routes, look closely at the church's twelfth-century doorways, or settle into one of the village pubs. Cotswold Farm Park adds a nearby animal attraction with rare and native breeds.
Where to go
Places in Guiting Power
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Old Post Office
An independent café with twice-weekly mobile Post Office services, an Asian-influenced menu, more conventional breakfast and toastie choices, and gluten-free and vegan options.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes.
- Locality
- overlooking the village green
- Access
- Counter service; dogs are welcome inside and outside.
The Farmers Arms
A Donnington Brewery country pub and community hub with exposed beams, a log burner, skittle alley, sweeping bar, home-cooked food and a large rear beer garden.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes.
- Locality
- Guiting Power
The Hollow Bottom
A freehouse, dining pub and six-bedroom inn with a strong horse-racing identity and food based on local meat, game and seasonal produce.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes.
- Locality
- Guiting Power
- Access
- Well-behaved dogs are welcome in all areas of the pub, and the bedrooms are dog friendly.
Food & drink
1 placeThe Cotswold Guy
A farm shop and takeaway developed from a private-chef business, focused on locally sourced ingredients and elevated British classics including beef Wellingtons, Scotch eggs and barbecue kits.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes.
- Locality
- Church Lane
- Access
- The shop is collection-only and the venue has garden seating.
Walks & outdoors
3 placesGuiting Power and Castlett, Miles Without Stiles
An official 4.5-mile circuit following drovers' trails and quiet lanes through woodland and beside the Guiting Stream, with a disused quarry, Kineton and a medieval-village site on the route sheet.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow about 2½ hours.
- Locality
- starts from the village green
- Access
- The route is 4.5 miles with about 140 metres of ascent and descent; the Miles Without Stiles label does not mean flat.
Guiting Power–Naunton Circular
An official circular walk using sections of the Windrush Way and Wardens' Way, passing a lake, woodland, valley-bottom tracks, streamside ground and the edge of Naunton Downs golf course.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow 3–3½ hours.
- Locality
- starts from the village green
- Access
- The 6.25-mile route has some steep slopes and is graded for moderate fitness.
Cotswold Farm Park
A visitor attraction with more than 50 rare and native breeds across seven British farm-animal species, including Golden Guernsey goats and Highland cattle.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 150 minutes.
- Locality
- Guiting Power address
History & heritage
1 placeSt Michael and All Angels
A Grade II* church with twelfth-century north and south doorways; the north doorway has chevron, billet and star ornament and a tongue-out head carved into a jamb capital.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes.
- Locality
- Guiting Power
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Three ways to explore Guiting Power
Signature outings
Norman carving at St Michael's
The north doorway combines chevron, billet and star ornament with a jamb-capital head whose tongue hangs out.
An unusually wide-ranging café menu
The Old Post Office serves dishes including Malaysian fried eggs, Turkish shakshuka and mee goreng alongside breakfast, toasties and daily gluten-free cake.
From dovecotes to race horses
The Naunton circular uses the Windrush Way and Wardens' Way through lake, woodland, valley-bottom and streamside country.
The village story
Guiting Power: food, walks and long memory
The locked Travel Fox article moves from the green and village food to official walks, church details, local stewardship, access and the annual festival.
From the green to Church Lane
The green is broad and open, and the Old Post Office café sits at the edge of it. Postal business still happens here a couple of mornings a week, from a counter that also puts out Malaysian fried eggs with a spiced tomato-and-soy sambal, Turkish shakshuka with aubergine, chickpeas and pomegranate molasses, and mee goreng served with fried Spam. There is a Postman's breakfast too, sausage rolls with a house sweet-chilli sauce, sourdough toasties, and a daily gluten-free cake. Dogs are welcome inside and out, with their own menu and a few treats on the house.
Round on Church Lane, The Cotswold Guy grew out of a private-chef business and now works as a farm shop and takeaway with garden seating. The collection-only counter deals in signature and mini beef Wellingtons, a côte-de-boeuf kit, Scotch eggs and smoked baby-back ribs.
Two village pubs
The Farmers Arms is a Donnington Brewery pub, run by Luke and Kelsie, with exposed beams, a log burner, a skittle alley and a long sweeping bar. The kitchen sends out baked Camembert with focaccia and red-onion chutney, a Farmer's Ploughman's of ham, mature cheddar and pork pie, slow-roasted pork-belly bites in hot honey and chilli, beer-battered haddock and chips, a homemade pie of the day, and a spiced cauliflower-and-lentil pie for anyone eating vegan. The three regular Donnington casks are BB, SBA and Cotswold Gold, and there is a large beer garden with parking.
The Hollow Bottom, a freehouse and six-bedroom inn, keeps a horse-racing identity that the food does not quite prepare you for. The kitchen leans on local meat, game and seasonal produce, and the week has its fixtures: a Nap of the Day, Monday pies, a grill night with peppercorn sauce, and Thursday burgers. Dogs are welcome in every part of the pub, and the bedrooms take them too. The garden fills in summer.
Racing history and official walks
The racing runs deep here. The pub was Ye Olde Inn until the trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies and Raymond Mould bought it in the summer of 1996. Bindaree, their 2002 Grand National winner, now lends its name to the house IPA, brewed by North Cotswold Brewery, and pours alongside Shagweaver, Windrush and Hooky Best Bitter. A lager called Splash of Ginge remembers the 2017 Paddy Power Gold Cup winner, with fifty pence from every pint going to Stamp Out Suicide.
Both official walks start from the green. The Guiting Power and Castlett route runs four and a half miles along drovers' trails and quiet lanes, following the Guiting Stream for a stretch; it carries the Miles Without Stiles label but still climbs a fair way. The longer Naunton circular is six and a quarter miles on sections of the Windrush Way and the Wardens' Way, taking in a lake, woodland and the edge of Naunton Downs golf course. Paths drop quickly from the green into folds of high farmland and climb again through fields and drystone walls, the pale stone reflecting the Jurassic limestone that underlies this part of the Cotswolds.
Church details and village stewardship
The church of St Michael and All Angels holds two twelfth-century doorways. The north one has a chevroned arch with billet and star ornament, and one of its jamb capitals is carved as a head with its tongue hanging out. The nave roof, partly fifteenth-century, has carved-face corbels and bosses of a bearded man and a Tudor rose.
Much of what you see standing owes something to Raymond Cochrane, who in 1968 bought the manor lands and more than half the village's houses when rural decline had left many of them roofless, restored them, and set up the Guiting Manor Amenity Trust to carry the work on. The name is older: "Power" comes from the le Poer family, lords here in the early 1200s, and the village was Lower Guiting until "Guiting Power" was settled on in the 1940s.
Arriving, nearby visits and festival life
Moreton-in-Marsh, about twelve miles by road, is the nearest station; otherwise the approach is on narrow high-wold lanes. The parish council says there is no regular bus, and points residents to the county's bookable Robin service instead. Cotswold Farm Park, just over a mile away, keeps more than fifty rare and native breeds, Golden Guernsey goats and Highland cattle among them, and Sudeley Castle at Winchcombe is five miles on, with ten gardens and Katherine Parr buried in the chapel.
Behind the village hall is the playing field, and every July since 1970 it has hosted the Guiting Music Festival across the last ten days of the month, with evening concerts and two Sunday performances out in the open air, children and well-behaved dogs on leads welcome for those.
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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.
- The Old Post Office — oldpostofficeguiting.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Cotswold Guy — thecotswoldguy.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Farmers Arms — farmersarmsguitingpower.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Hollow Bottom — thehollowbottom.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Michael and All Angels — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Guiting Power and Castlett, Miles Without Stiles — cotswolds-nl.org.uk other published source
- Guiting Power–Naunton Circular — cotswolds-nl.org.uk other published source
- Cotswold Farm Park — cotswoldfarmpark.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation