Paxford

A village inn after the fire

The Churchill Arms, Paxford’s only pub, has been closed since a fire damaged the listed building in March 2022. In September 2026, restoration was continuing and the owners were preparing to sell it as a pub.

The early eighteenth-century building has ashlar walls, mullioned windows, a large fireplace and chamfered beams. Before the fire, the kitchen served chicken livers on toast with sage, lobster mac ’n’ cheese and homemade chocolate truffles; the pub’s Winston house ale was brewed by North Cotswold Brewery. The sale particulars specify four en-suite letting bedrooms in the refurbishment scope.

Thomas Sharp and everyday supplies

The inn took its name in 1956 from Captain Spencer Churchill, a cousin of Winston Churchill and a benefactor of Blockley parish. Earlier, Thomas Sharp lived and worked on the site. Born in Paxford in the late eighteenth century, he built and repaired farm buildings, made elaborate clock cases and sold cider from his orchard. The orchard became the village recreation ground.

For provisions, Vegetable Matters in nearby Ebrington sells seasonal fruit and vegetables, many grown at Drinkwater Farm, along with bread, eggs, jams and Cotswold Gold oil. Pete and Amanda Drinkwater opened the farm shop in 2017. Chipping Campden, the nearest market town, is two miles west.

Stone, memory and village life

Paxford is small, about three hundred people, and built predominantly of the same plain local stone, set on the lower slopes of the Blockley valley in open farming country. It grew as a farming settlement rather than a mill one, which is why it feels quieter and less worked-over than Blockley up the hill. The B4479 runs through the middle, past a stone war-memorial obelisk that names eleven village men killed in the First World War. Behind it stands the former Mission Church, built in 1866 as an infant school for a hundred children and licensed for Sunday worship within the year. Services ended in 2016, and it is now a holiday let, its bell-cote, clock and patterned tile floor still in place.

The village hall opened in 1910 as a Working Men's Institute and remains the centre of things, with a walking group, a book group and life-drawing and mixed-media art groups meeting through the year.

Walks, gardens and transport

A circular walk from Paxford links Broad Campden and Northwick Park in just under seven miles, with two long uphill sections; a longer loop through Chipping Campden crosses farmland and small wooded areas. Further out, Hidcote is Major Lawrence Johnston’s Arts and Crafts garden of contrasting outdoor rooms and the National Trust’s first garden-only property. Batsford Arboretum near Moreton-in-Marsh has sixty acres of rare trees, shrubs and bamboos, plus a café, garden centre and gift shop.

Moreton-in-Marsh, about five miles away by road, is the nearest railway station, with GWR services, a car park, taxis and step-free access to both platforms. The volunteer-run Hedgehog H7 links Paxford with Mickleton and Moreton-in-Marsh on Fridays.

The older county lingers

Paxford remained in Worcestershire until 1931. In 1086 it formed part of the Bishop of Worcester’s Blockley manor, so the Domesday figures describe the larger holding rather than Paxford alone. Local stone quarries are documented from the fourteenth century, and the railway line near Paxford opened in 1853.