Fairford and Quenington

Kaye Leggett

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The outward leg of this easy walk from the centre of Fairford runs along the side of the River Coln to the neighbouring village of Quenington, with its ancient church and medieval gatehouse. A wander around the village and visit to the pub if you time it right are a welcome diversion. The return is along a minor road with sweeping views of the surrounding countryside towards The Ridgeway, the Fairford Obelisk (worth a Google) and then back across the river to retrace your steps.

Fairford itself is an ancient market town dominated by the Late Perpendicular 'wool' church of St Mary with its pinnacled tower, magnificent medieval stained glass and a wealth of carvings in both wood and stone. It is worth a wander around the town and there are many opportunities for refreshments. The main square is lined with 17th and 18th century stone houses. There are a number of pubs in the town including the Bull, an old coaching inn.

The military air base nearby was where Concorde was flight-tested for a number of years and where the bi-annual military air Tattoo is based.

IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS WALK USES PERMISSIVE PATHS WHICH ARE CLOSED ON TUESDAYS

England - South West England - Gloucestershire - Cotswolds

Features

Birds, Church, Pub, River, Toilets

9/22/2022 - Kaye Leggett

As new custodian of this walk, we have re-walked it and hopefully clarified the odd anomaly, adding new pictures and varying the end to avoid as much road as possible. It is a great walk in quiet Cotswold countryside. The paths are well used by the locals.

9/20/2022 - Kaye Leggett

As a new custodian of this walk- I have recently re-walked it and updated the pictures and directions, hopefully ironing out all anomalies. It really is a super walk and well worth a half day amble.

2/10/2019 - Susanna Winters

Really lovely walk. Easy to navigate (despite a few anomalies - see other comments) and not strenuous. The first bit to Quenington is the nicest - very pretty by the river and as you approach Quenington. Well worth it just to see Knight's Gate which is awesome!

6/26/2016 - Jenny Beal

Lovely walk almost half of which is on a permissive path which we would never discovered from just looking at an OS map. We didn’t have any problems with route-finding, as the paths were well-marked with yellow paint. But some of the instructions could do with further clarification. Ian Smith’s suggestions for WPs 3 and 5 proved to be accurate. Also for WP 6, the stream is actually on your right as you walk along the path. In some cases there was not a complete correspondence between grid ref, photo and positioning of the relevant part of the description. That said, I don’t think anyone would get lost – route-finding was very easy. We actually combined this with the Fairford walk Id 12 (which was also lovely) by taking a footpath on the left a little way past the school entrance shown in the photo for WP 12 (SP15689 01665), and where it ends, turning south down the second of the two roads to the main A417 road. From there you turn right for a short distance and then left down Cinder Lane. It comes out near WP 7 of the other walk, Id 12. The total length was 7.7 miles.

6/3/2016 - Chris Moulsley

Lovely walk, especially through the woods bit. Just be careful at the end field before Quenington as there are bulls and cows in the field and they were not friendly so we had to turn back. This was on 30th May.

12/31/2015 - Ian Smith

We enjoyed the walk even though it was quite muddy after lots of rain. Just a couple of comments re the navigation. 3. You don't turn immediately left but follow the path straight on for 20-30 yards until it turns left and joins a field. Turn right at the field and carry on.Then you will have the stream on right and field on left. 5. We struggled with this one since it appeared that you turned right at the location of the picture (the notice on the gate on the right bars public access) or immediately before the photo (which looked straightforward but didn't seem to get us to the right point). What we found was that you carry on at the picture shown at 5 until the path bears left and takes you up to a field. You then turn right at the field. Then you have the field boundary on your right and the fields on left. Good walk though although we were very glad of walking boots as there were several extremely muddy bits.

4/19/2005 - Peter Clare

The walk is great.