Ironstone and orchard country
Ilmington
A Warwickshire village below the county’s highest ground, with two greens, remnant orchards, crossing footpaths, a community shop and local food stops.
- Best for
- Walking routes, village history and local food
- Give it
- Four and a half hours for the Ebrington circular
- Don't miss
- St Mary’s eleven carved mice and embroidered Apple Map
The Fox verdict
A village shaped by slopes, orchards and footpaths
Come for a choice of village circuits and high-ground walks, then stay for the church, community shop and two country pubs.
Ilmington combines honey-coloured ironstone houses, Lower and Upper Greens, remnant orchards and many crossing footpaths. Its visitor stops range from a Grade I church and a cooperative shop in a former Catholic church to two pubs and a floodlit multi-sports surface.
Where to go
Places in Ilmington
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Red Lion
A cosy Hook Norton Brewery country pub with a fire-warmed bar, modern-British cooking focused on local producers and a secluded enclosed rear garden.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 60 minutes
- Locality
- A short walk from the Howard Arms
- Access
- Dogs are welcome by the open fire.
St Mary the Virgin
A Grade I church with a mid-12th-century core, Norman zig-zag moulding, a castellated tower stage, eleven Mouseman mice and an embroidered Apple Map.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Ilmington
Hidcote
A 10.5-acre National Trust garden of Arts-and-Crafts outdoor rooms created by Lawrence Johnston from 1907 to 1938.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 120 minutes
- Locality
- Hidcote Bartrim
Food & drink
2 placesThe Howard Arms
A 400-year-old Cotswold-stone country inn combining a pub, restaurant and eight-room B&B, with two Ilmington-made spirits on its drinks list.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Lower Green
- Access
- Dogs are welcome in the bar area.
Ilmington Community Shop & Café
A community-owned cooperative shop and volunteer-led café in the former St Philip’s Roman Catholic Church, selling local produce, bread, cakes, deli goods and local drinks.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Upper Green
Walks & outdoors
2 placesEbrington to Ilmington — the scenic route
An eight-mile circular passing Foxcote House and St Mary’s before returning over high ground with views said to span at least four counties.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: 4.5 hours
- Locality
- Between Ebrington and Ilmington
- Access
- The route includes steep slopes.
Ilmington Walks on Wheels
An easy three-quarter-mile village circuit on hard surfaces, intended for wheelchairs, mobility scooters and children’s buggies.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Ilmington village
- Access
- The easy circuit is on hard surfaces and is intended for wheelchairs, mobility scooters and children’s buggies.
Things to do
1 placeIlmington Multi Sports Facility
A floodlit artificial-grass surface for tennis, five-a-side football and floorball.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Ilmington
- Access
- Visitors can book tennis online; other sports require advance booking.
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Three ways to explore Ilmington
Signature outings
Order an Ilmington-made spirit
The Howard Arms lists Ilmington’s own Cotswold Apple Brandy and Spirit of Ilmington Heavenly Honey Liqueur.
Find St Mary’s carved details
Inside St Mary the Virgin are eleven carved mice by Robert “Mouseman” Thompson and an embroidered Apple Map of old village orchards.
Meet Ilmington’s cooperative
The volunteer-led shop and café occupies the former St Philip’s Roman Catholic Church on Upper Green.
The village story
Ilmington Village Guide
Pubs, paths, orchards and village institutions beneath Warwickshire’s highest ground.
Two Inns on the Greens
On Lower Green, the Howard Arms has stood for four hundred years, a Cotswold-stone inn built when Shakespeare was still working eight miles up the road in Stratford. It is pub, restaurant and eight-room B&B at once. Head chef Adam Pieprzak's kitchen runs to pork-and-black-pudding crispy rillettes with celeriac remoulade, parmesan gnocchi with sun-dried tomato and hazelnut, beer-battered haddock with chunky chips, and sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream and honeycomb. Two things on the drinks list are made in the village itself: Ilmington's own Cotswold Apple Brandy and a honey liqueur called Spirit of Ilmington. Dogs are welcome in the bar.
A short walk off is the Red Lion, a Hook Norton house with a fire-warmed bar and a secluded garden enclosed at the back. It welcomes dogs by the open fire and pours Hook Norton beers and ciders, and its cooking leans modern British and local. It has carried the same name for a while: a photograph in the county record office shows the Red Lion Inn in 1900.
Community Shop and Hillside Village
The village shop closed in 2012, and for three years there wasn't one. The Ilmington Community Shop and Café now occupies the former St Philip's Roman Catholic church on Upper Green — a building that started as a Catholic school in 1867, became a church in 1935, and closed in 2013 before the volunteers took it on. It is a cooperative, run by manager Michele Hall with Laura Groves and a rota of volunteers who bake the croissants. You will find local fruit and vegetables, bread, cakes, meat, pies, deli goods and local beers, ciders and spirits. A Grimsby fishmonger, Leigh McCall, usually calls on Mondays.
Ilmington is Warwickshire's highest village, climbing a deep combe below Ilmington Downs in honey-coloured ironstone. It has two greens, Lower and Upper, remnant orchards of many apple varieties scattered through it, and footpaths crossing in every direction.
Walking Routes and St Mary’s
Those footpaths are much of the reason to come. The circuit from the Howard Arms out to Hidcote and back is 7.4 miles, climbing to the county's highest point with long Cotswold views; the National Trust garden at Hidcote — ten and a half acres of Arts-and-Crafts outdoor rooms that Lawrence Johnston laid out between 1907 and 1938 — sits about two miles off as the map measures it. A longer eight-mile circular links the village with Ebrington, passing Foxcote House and returning over high ground said to take in at least four counties. For anyone with a wheelchair, mobility scooter or buggy, there is an easy three-quarter-mile loop on hard surfaces.
St Mary the Virgin has a mid-12th-century core, Norman zig-zag moulding and a castellated 15th-century tower stage with gargoyles. Inside are a painted sundial, an 1868 clock, a priest's effigy and a Tudor chest, and, if you look for them, eleven carved mice left by Robert Thompson, the Yorkshire furniture-maker whose workshop signed its work with a mouse. An embroidered Apple Map records where the old village orchards stood. Dorothy Hodgkin is buried in the churchyard.
Hodgkin, Morris and Domesday
Hodgkin worked out the structures of penicillin and vitamin B12 by X-ray crystallography, won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry — the first British woman to do so — and died at Ilmington in 1994. The village has an older inheritance too, one harder to catch on a quiet afternoon: a Morris tradition the parish council traces back more than three hundred years. "The dances of the village have remained within certain families for generations," the council records, and the side still performs, at home and abroad. Cecil Sharp came to collect the dances in the early 1900s.
The Domesday commissioners found the place split between three landholders in 1086, fifty-two households in all, and valued the three holdings together at twelve pounds and fifteen shillings.
Family Stops and Village Rhythms
For families there is Grace's Playground, with swings, a basket swing and an adventure trail, set beside a field with football and cricket pitches, and a floodlit multi-sports surface you can book for tennis. The nearest station is Moreton-in-Marsh, a little over eight miles away; Stratford-upon-Avon is eight miles north and Shipston-on-Stour three and a half to the south-east, with the Service 10 bus linking the village to both.
On a Monday the fishmonger's van pulls up outside a shop that used to be a church, and the croissants go out on the counter behind it.
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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 Howard Arms — howardarms.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Red Lion — redlionilmington.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Ilmington Community Shop & Café — ilmingtonshop.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Mary the Virgin — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Ebrington to Ilmington — the scenic route — cotswolds-nl.org.uk other published source
- Ilmington Walks on Wheels — cotswolds-nl.org.uk other published source
- Ilmington Multi Sports Facility — clubspark.lta.org.uk other published source
- Hidcote — nationaltrust.org.uk national body or asset manager