Avening - Chavenage House - Avening

Sean Meek

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Avening is a large village perched on a steep hillside of the Gloucestershire Avon. Formerly a cloth-making centre, the village became prosperous during the period of the Cotswold wool trade and mills continued to produce cloth late into the twentieth century.

The walk heads up the side of the valley and then across fields to Chavenage, which is an Elizabethan house of mellow grey Cotswold stone that has remained virtually unchanged for 400 years. In 1648 Oliver Cromwell visited Chavenage to try to persuade the MP for Gloucestershire, who owned the house at the time, to agree to the execution of Charles I. Legend has it that the MP was cursed for supporting Cromwell and this accounts for the strange happenings that have occurred ever since, making it one of the most haunted houses in Gloucestershire.

From Chavenage the walk heads along the bottom of a wooded valley back to Avening which may be quite muddy in places.

England - South West England - Gloucestershire - Cotswolds

Features

Great Views, Pub, Public Transport, Stately Home, Woodland

5/26/2022 - Harry Cook

This is a very pleasant walk which takes one through village, woodland and farmland. To get a better gradient profile I reversed the route which made it gentler. The paths were easy to follow but I suspect that the woodland section alongside Longtree bottom could get very muddy especially at the Southern end. There is a cafe (the Wild Carrot) at Chavenage, but we did not sample it. Overall, a jolly good walk. (May 2022)

5/4/2019 - Simon Foster

Lovely walk. Note that the Macmillan Way is very overgrown in parts. From points 6-10, crop planting means that you have to walk round fields rather than ‘diagonally across’ as suggested.