Hazleton

St Andrew's and the High Wold

The west tower of St Andrew's holds a single bell, cast in 1721 at Abraham Rudhall's foundry in Gloucester. The church around it is older still: a 12th-century building with a late-Norman south doorway and a chancel arch carved with chevron moulding and scalloped capitals, restored and given its north aisle by J. Medland in 1866. Inside there is an octagonal 13th-century font with paired trefoil panels, a 14th-century porch built partly from an incised sepulchral slab, and a plain memorial to Bartholomew Dobson, rector here, who died in 1660.

That church is more or less the centre of gravity in a village that does not otherwise gather in one place. Hazleton sits high in the Cotswold hills, scattered across stony fields and dry-stone walls, with small woods, combes and a stream valley but no river running through it. The views are long. The settlement is not.

Northleach Provisions and the Wheatsheaf

For a pub or a shop you go to Northleach, a few miles off, where the old market place still holds timber-framed Tudor buildings and most of the shops are independently owned — bread and cakes, meat and cheese, wine, newspapers. A Budgens covers the practical end, with food-to-go and fresh bread and meat, open 08:00 to 20:00 if you've arrived late and forgotten something.

Northleach also has the two pubs worth the short drive. The Wheatsheaf Inn is a 17th-century coaching inn, ivy over the front, with a bar, a restaurant and fourteen bedrooms. The kitchen, under head chef Horatio, cooks seasonal British food: twice-baked Nantwich cheddar soufflé with spinach and grain-mustard sauce, baked scallops with burnt-chilli-and-bacon butter and samphire, chalk-stream trout with Isle of Wight tomatoes and broad beans, cider-battered haddock with triple-cooked chips, and a roast trio of chicken, beef and pork loin. Dogs are welcome throughout, including the garden, which has a pizza oven and an outside bar.

The Sherborne and the Old Routes

The Sherborne Arms, on Market Place, is the plainer of the two: open fires, a large bar, a separate restaurant and a courtyard outside. Peter Creed and Tom Noest run it, and the food leans to core pub classics and simple British cooking that makes room for offal and game, bought seasonally from a butcher, a fishmonger and local game dealers.

Most of what there is to do here is walking. From St Andrew's a stile-free circuit runs 4.3 miles to Salperton and back, following a bridleway past Hazleton Grove and Church Covert, climbing across fields to giant beeches and a wood called Raspberry Brake. It is level of stiles, not of effort — the ground is steep in places and muddy for much of the year. A gentler loop of about 4.5 miles crosses open wold and a small stream valley towards Salperton Park, and a longer 8.3-mile circuit links Hazleton to Cold Aston, Notgrove and Turkdean, following the Gloucestershire Way toward Notgrove and a good track back after crossing the stream and climbing into Turkdean. The AA describes the country here as "an airy rural walk from a quiet village that owes its existence to medieval trading routes." Hazleton did once sit on a salt road between Droitwich and the Thames at Lechlade, and on a wool trail down from Chipping Campden.

Neolithic Kinship and Getting Here

The trading routes are not the oldest thing near the village. Two Neolithic long barrows lie in the fields to the north, one of them excavated between 1979 and 1982 by the archaeologist Alan Saville. DNA work later showed that 35 of the people buried inside belonged to a single extended family. The barrows are scheduled monuments on private farmland; check the current rights of way before planning a visit.

Getting here means minor lanes off the A40; the nearest station is Cheltenham Spa, about fifteen kilometres away in a straight line, and a taxi from there is the sensible plan. A bookable Robin minibus will stop at St Andrew's Church if you arrange it in advance. For a longer day out, Chedworth Roman Villa is close, with its in-situ mosaics, bath-house, hypocaust heating and a café.

Where the Scattered Parish Meets

The village hall, a single room with a kitchen and a ramp and parking for ten cars, is where the scattered parish comes together. Fifty-six chairs, for a village you could otherwise drive through without noticing anyone was home.