High-wold quiet
Turkdean
A tiny rural settlement with a Norman church, long-view walks and a substantial Roman complex buried beneath the fields.
- Best for
- Long-view walks and Norman church details
- Give it
- A church visit, or four to four and a half hours for the official circular
- Don't miss
- The animal-head corbels at All Saints
The Fox verdict
A tiny base for walking and layered history
Turkdean pairs high-wold quiet with a richly detailed Norman church and two compelling Roman stories, one hidden and one on display nearby.
The village has no current pub or shop, so its strengths are the landscape and the depth of its history. Follow the official circular across rolling hills, examine All Saints' Norman stonework, then use Northleach for food or Chedworth to see the mosaics, baths and hypocausts that Turkdean's buried complex cannot show.
Where to go
Places in Turkdean
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesChurch of All Saints
A Grade I church with a 12th-century Norman nave and chancel, animal-head corbels, a blocked priest's door, painted fragments and a flower-and-butterfly screen made in 1949.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Turkdean
- Access
- This Grade I parish church is part of the Northleach Benefice.
The Wheatsheaf Inn
A historic Cotswold country inn serving a refined, seasonal British menu, with a garden pizza oven and outside bar.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Northleach
- Access
- Dogs are welcome throughout the pub and garden; seasonal dishes change frequently.
Chedworth Roman Villa
See in-situ mosaics, bath-house remains and hypocausts, with a museum, café, picnic area and seasonal family trails.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Chedworth
- Access
- Only assistance dogs are admitted. Follow the National Trust's signed road approach from the A429 rather than navigating to Chedworth village.
Walks & outdoors
2 placesFour Gems and a Diamond
An official Cotswolds National Landscape circular across rolling hills, linking four villages and opening up good views.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow 4 to 4.5 hours
- Locality
- Cold Aston, Notgrove, Turkdean and Hazleton
- Access
- The route can include steep slopes and is graded for moderate fitness.
Birdland Park & Gardens
Nine acres of gardens and woodland with named areas including Penguin Shore and Out of Africa.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 120 minutes
- Locality
- Bourton-on-the-Water
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Three ways to explore Turkdean
Signature outings
Find the Norman details
Look for carved animal heads on the corbel table, the blocked Norman priest's door and its mass dial before going inside for painted fragments and the 1949 screen.
Follow Four Gems and a Diamond
The eight-mile circular links Cold Aston, Notgrove, Turkdean and Hazleton across rolling hills, with long views and some steep sections.
Look for Penguin Shore
Birdland spreads across nine acres of gardens and woodland, with named areas including Penguin Shore and Out of Africa.
The village story
Turkdean: high-wold quiet and histories underfoot
A small green and a Norman church introduce a village whose walking country, buried Roman complex and musical footnote make it far larger in story than in size.
Village essentials and supper nearby
Outside Turkdean Manor there is a small green, a working roadside trough once called the Town Well, and a K6 telephone box. Around fifty people live here, spread across gently rolling high wold, and the village has no current pub or shop; the former school closed in 1950. It once had a pub, a shop and a bakery too.
So for supper you drive. Northleach, about three miles south, is the everyday stop, with independent shops selling fresh bread, cakes, meat, cheese and wine. It also has The Wheatsheaf Inn, a Cotswold country inn where Head Chef Horatio cooks a seasonal British menu that changes often. Recent dishes have run to a twice-baked Nantwich cheddar soufflé with spinach and grain-mustard sauce, wild-garlic-and-mint pesto gnocchi with green beans and peas, a Hertfordshire chicken Kiev with wild-garlic butter and Jersey Royals, pan-seared chalk-stream trout, cider-battered haddock with triple-cooked chips, and Cotswolds lamb chops with Wye Valley asparagus and salsa verde. Dogs are welcome throughout, biscuits and water provided, and the garden has a pizza oven and an outside bar.
A pub in waiting and walks across the wolds
Closer still, in Cold Aston, The Plough is advertised as forthcoming, a country pub with four rooms. It is worth a look, though check whether it has opened before you set out.
The walking is the reason to base yourself here. The Cotswolds National Landscape's Four Gems and a Diamond is an eight-mile circular from Cold Aston, linking Cold Aston, Notgrove, Turkdean and Hazleton across open country in four to four and a half hours, with a few steep sections. The Ramblers' Big Views, Small Villages loop from Northleach threads through Hampnett, Turkdean, Cold Aston and Farmington. Both trade on the same thing: long views over open country. The approach from the north drops through the Beeches, a beech avenue, to a bridge over the small Turkadina stream at the foot of the hill; the parish climbs to around 740 feet at its northern end.
All Saints and the buried Roman complex
All Saints sits at the centre of it, Norman at its core and Grade I listed: a twelfth-century nave and chancel, a thirteenth-century south aisle, a fifteenth-century tower. Outside, a corbel table carries carved animal heads, and a blocked priest's door keeps its diapered tympanum with a mass dial scratched beside it. Inside are traces of wall painting, including royal arms and a full-length figure set against stars, and a white-painted oak screen made in 1949 by Peter Falconer and decorated with flowers and butterflies. A south-aisle window by Henry A. Payne remembers Dame Julia Bolton, who died in 1924. The church and its seven sister churches in the benefice are open to visitors every day, closing at dusk in winter.
Under the fields to one side lies a Roman complex of real size, roughly 120 by 75 metres arranged around three courtyards, occupied from the late second century into the late fourth. None of it is visible. Parch marks were sketched in 1976, an aerial photograph in 1995 showed how much was buried there, and Time Team dug it in 1997 and returned in 1998; finds have included coins, tesserae, hypocaust box tiles, glass and an enamelled bronze brooch inscribed VTERE FELIX, good luck to the wearer. A large central bath has led some to wonder whether it was a sanctuary rather than a villa. To see excavated Roman mosaics and bath-houses for yourself, drive to Chedworth Roman Villa.
From Domesday to Netherturkdonic
The Domesday surveyors recorded two Turkdeans. Upper Turkdean, with twenty households, was worth five pounds a year to its lord; Lower Turkdean, with five households, ten shillings.
For a while the village had an unlikely recording studio. Steve Winwood built one at his manor here and named it Netherturkdonic, and made much of Arc of a Diver in it, largely alone. The songwriter Will Jennings remembered hearing Winwood play to about ten people in the church before the two of them began working together.
Rural connections and a historian's last word
Trains are a fair way off; Kingham, on Great Western, appears to be the nearest, at roughly ten miles — worth checking the route before you travel. A very limited Pulhams bus, the 832, runs from Cold Aston to Andoversford, and the county's bookable Robin minibus will stop at the church and the manor if you arrange it. By car, the approach is down minor lanes.
Writing his history of the village in 1981, John Clarke listed what Turkdean had long been noted for: healthy air, sound sleep and sweet mutton.
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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.
- Church of All Saints — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Four Gems and a Diamond — cotswolds-nl.org.uk other published source
- The Wheatsheaf Inn — cotswoldswheatsheaf.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Chedworth Roman Villa — nationaltrust.org.uk national body or asset manager
- Birdland Park & Gardens — birdland.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation