Laurie Lee's valley
Slad
A small Gloucestershire village where a landmark pub, a memorial church and wildlife-rich slopes carry the story of Cider with Rosie.
- Best for
- Walking, wildlife and Laurie Lee's story
- Give it
- Three to three and a half hours for the Wildlife Way
- Don't miss
- Laurie Lee Wood's excerpt posts
The Fox verdict
A literary village rooted in its valley
Come for Laurie Lee's Slad, then follow the story into the church, the Woolpack and the surrounding nature reserves.
Slad's strongest visit combines the compact setting of Holy Trinity and the Woolpack with the grassland and ancient woodland of the Slad Valley. The Wildlife Way links the landscape, wildlife and Laurie Lee's story in one circular walk.
Where to go
Places in Slad
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Woolpack Inn
A tiny independent country pub with a fireside tavern, snug, dining room and vine-covered terraces, serving seasonal British food alongside real ales, craft beer and cider.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- overlooking the Slad Valley
- Access
- Adam Glover's seasonal menu changes weekly.
Museum in the Park
A free museum in a 1674 Grade II-listed wool merchant's mansion, displaying more than 4,000 district objects and offering exhibitions, a café, a walled garden and family explorer trails.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Stroud
Painswick Rococo Garden
A surviving 1740s rococo pleasure garden with follies, Cotswold views, family activities and a nursery.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 120 minutes
- Locality
- Painswick House
- Access
- This is an outdoor garden visit with follies and Cotswold views.
Walks & outdoors
3 placesLaurie Lee Wildlife Way
A 5.3–5.5-mile circular route through three wildlife reserves, combining valley views, butterflies, flora and Laurie Lee's story.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow 3–3½ hours
- Locality
- through the Slad Valley
- Access
- Expect uneven, steep slopes and rough terrain.
Laurie Lee Wood
A three-hectare ancient semi-natural wood with spring bluebells and wild garlic, plus path-side posts carrying excerpts from Laurie Lee's work.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- around the village
- Access
- The reserve is free and open access, with an uneven and sometimes steep path.
Swift's Hill
A steep ten-hectare grassland SSSI with more than 130 wildflower species, including 13 orchids, and 29 recorded butterfly species.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- around the village
- Access
- Dogs must be on leads, and cattle graze the hill.
History & heritage
1 placeHoly Trinity Church
A limestone church designed in 1831 and opened in 1834, with a memorial stained-glass window, a permanent Laurie Lee display and his grave in the churchyard.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- across the village
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Three ways to explore Slad
Signature outings
The Woolpack terraces
In summer the dining room moves outside beneath grape vines, where the chefs sometimes cook on a Josper grill.
Holy Trinity and Laurie Lee
The church contains a memorial stained-glass window and permanent display, while Laurie Lee is buried in its churchyard.
Wildflowers on Swift's Hill
The climb up its steep grassland rewards clear-day walkers with Slad Valley views that reach Wales.
The village story
Slad Village Guide
A village pub, a memorial church and wildlife-rich slopes frame the landscape Laurie Lee made famous.
Dining above the valley
The Woolpack sits on the edge of the Slad Valley, its terraces covered in grape vines and looking out over valley and Cotswold views. Inside are a fireside tavern, a snug and a dining room. In summer, dining moves outdoors under the vines, where the chefs sometimes cook on a Josper grill. Laurie Lee's writing made the pub famous.
Adam Glover's menu changes weekly and uses produce from a walled garden. His cooking spans pub classics and more refined British plates. Past dishes have included smoked cod's roe with onion rings; pickled sea bass with potatoes, shallots and horseradish; onglet with chips and peppercorn sauce; confit duck leg with mashed swede and red cabbage; braised lamb shoulder with soft polenta and green sauce; and a meat-free pumpkin, chestnut and farro stew.
Three centuries at the inn, and Holy Trinity
The pub pours real ales, craft beer and cider. The sculptor Daniel Chadwick bought it in 1999 and rebuilt the kitchen in 2015, though the building itself has more than three hundred years behind it and wears the age lightly.
Across the village, Holy Trinity is a limestone church of 1831 by Charles Baker of Painswick, reconstructed by Benjamin Bucknall in 1869. It began as a chapel of ease to Painswick and opened for worship in 1834. Inside there is a four-bay arcade, a stone floor, an octagonal font under a tall pyramidal cover, and a pulpit. Laurie Lee is buried in the churchyard, and a stained-glass window and a small display inside remember him.
Walking the valley and getting to Slad
Most of what brings people to Slad is out of doors. The Laurie Lee Wildlife Way is a circular walk of about five and a half miles through three wildlife reserves in the valley, with steep and uneven ground in places. Laurie Lee Wood, three hectares of ancient woodland once owned by the Lee family, has bluebells and wild garlic in spring and wooden posts along the path carrying lines from Lee's writing. Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust bought it after more than a thousand people gave to an appeal, and opened it in 2013 on what would have been Lee's ninety-ninth birthday; his widow Kathy and daughter Jessy were there. Swift's Hill, steeper again, is ten hectares of grassland with more than 130 wildflower species, thirteen of them orchids, and twenty-nine kinds of butterfly; on a clear day the view reaches Wales. Cattle graze it from April to October and dogs must stay on leads.
Slad lies about two miles from Stroud along the B4070, with Slad Brook running along the valley floor below the road. Stroud has the nearest railway station. Sparse 65A and 228 bus services link the village with Stroud.
Laurie Lee, Rosie and the valley
The valley is the one Lee wrote about in Cider with Rosie. He arrived in 1917 at the age of three, went to the village school, and after some years away came back to live here in the early 1960s. He died in 1997 at Little Court, the cottage behind the village pub, with his wife and daughter beside him. Two years earlier he had joined a successful campaign against building houses in the valley he immortalised in his writing.
Rose Buckland, who had publicly identified herself as the Rosie of the book, remembered haymaking and farmers' cider carried in stone jars: "They were absolutely marvellous days." The school Lee attended and the churchyard where he lies stand close together near the bottom of the valley.
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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 Woolpack Inn — thewoolpackslad.com operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Holy Trinity Church — stroudparishchurches.org.uk other published source
- Laurie Lee Wildlife Way — cotswolds-nl.org.uk other published source
- Laurie Lee Wood — gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk other published source
- Swift's Hill — gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk other published source
- Museum in the Park — museuminthepark.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Painswick Rococo Garden — rococogarden.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation