Cotswolds, United Kingdom

The Painswick

Price per night from$266.80

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (GBP197.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Honey-hued and homey

Setting

Golden Gloucestershire

The Painswick is back, and we’re counting our blessings. Originally home to the village vicar, this Grade II-listed building has undergone meticulous renovations; transforming forgotten corners into characterful rooms — some warmed with crackling log burners. There’s a wellie room for kitted-out Cotswolds wandering, lounge for afternoon tea and a raved-about restaurant where chefs prepare seasonal fare with flair. And for tipples at twilight, the former chapel’s stained-glass windows give this lauded haunt its gospel glow.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

One house cocktail (or mocktail) for each guest

Facilities

Photos The Painswick facilities

Need to know

Rooms

18, including one suite and a standalone cottage.

Check–Out

11am, and check-in is at 3pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability.

More details

Rates for all except the Cottage include a buffet and à la carte breakfast, served daily at the restaurant or brought to your bed.

Also

Unfortunately, due the hotel’s historic structure and steep stairs, The Painswick isn’t suitable for guests with limited mobility.

At the hotel

Games room, wellies to borrow and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: TV with Sky, Pure radio, a selection of books and magazines, Nespresso coffee machine, tea-making kit, mini fridge, homemade treats, bathrobes and 100 Acres bath products. The Cottage also has a fully equipped kitchen.

Our favourite rooms

Those who can’t bear to part with their pooch should book a Snug Room for their garden-side setting — they may be on the smaller side, but pups will be made to feel as welcome as you. For cosiness in the form of a roll-top tub and wood burner, go for the Hideaway Room within the characterful main house. And for all-out indulgence, it has to be George’s Suite, with its sprawling four-poster bed, balcony and fireplace.

Spa

There’s no spa on-site, but the hotel has partnered with Calcot Spa — a 30-minute drive away — for restorative stints at their tricked-out wellness centre.

Packing tips

Waxy jackets to join the Barbour brigade, but leave your wellies at home: the hotel has ones you can borrow.

Also

The Painswick is the Smith-sister-stay to Lord Crewe Arms in Northumberland’s quaint village of Blanchland.

Pet‐friendly

Pups are welcome in the Cosy, Snug and Terrace rooms, as well as the Cottage, for a nightly charge of £20 each. Bowls, beds and treats will be supplied, too. See more pet-friendly hotels in Cotswolds.

Children

Welcome; an extra bed can be added to George’s Suite and the Cottage sleeps six across three bedrooms. Babysitting can be arranged on request for an additional charge.

Best for

Babies and up.

Activities

Football and frisbee can be played on the lawns, and a pool table, games console and board games are available indoors.

Meals

Children are welcome in the restaurant at all times. Highchairs are provided and staff will be happy to heat up milk and baby food. There’s a simple dedicated menu for kids, featuring pizzas and various things with chips.

Babysitting

Babysitters can be booked a day in advance for £8.50 an hour.

No need to pack

The hotel can provide various baby-friendly accoutrements, including changing mats, bottle-sterilising facilities and toys, as well as DVDs, books and crayons for older children.

Also

Audio devices can be borrowed or guests can book a room above the restaurant and use their own.

Food and Drink

Photos The Painswick food and drink

Top Table

Bag a teal-toned banquette for cosy winter evenings; in warmer weather, opt for the table on the small balcony just off the lounge, for an idyllic perch that catches sunset.

Dress Code

Fresh from the valley’s trails.

Hotel restaurant

The Painswick’s restaurant — helmed by lauded chef Jamie McCallum —  draws devotees for good reason. Sharing-style menus use time-honoured English recipes given elevated, contemporary spins. Expect dishes to evolve with the seasons, as produce is all sourced locally, but barbecued hispi cabbage, cod coated in a home-made curry sauce, and ajo blanco-dosed artichoke are a handful of standouts. Buffet and à la carte breakfasts are also served at the restaurant, and the ensconcing living room is your fire-fronted setting for afternoon tea.

Hotel bar

Tucked into a cosy nook under the former chapel’s stained-glass windows, the copper-countered bar boasts an impressive selection of spirits put to innovative use in a seasonally changing cocktail menu, as well as the tipple of the day.

Last orders

Breakfast is 7am to 10am. Afternoon tea is from noon till 3.45pm, Monday to Friday. On Saturdays, lunch is noon to 1.45pm (2.45pm on Sundays) and afternoon tea is 2pm to 3.45pm (from 3pm on Sundays). Dinner is dished daily between 5.45pm and 9pm.

Location

Photos The Painswick location
Address
The Painswick
Kemps Lane Painswick
Gloucestershire
GL6 6YB
United Kingdom

The Painswick is in the picturesque Cotswold town of – you guessed it – Painswick, between Bath and Cheltenham.

Planes

Bristol is the closest airport, an hour away by car from the hotel; transfers can be arranged on request for £100 each way. From London Heathrow, the drive will take just under two hours.

Trains

The nearest train station is Stroud, a 20-minute drive away; transfers are available for £25 each way. Great Western runs services here from London Paddington.

Automobiles

The hotel is a 25-minute drive out of Cheltenham. From Junction 13 of the M5, the journey will take 20 minutes. There’s a small carpark on-site.

Worth getting out of bed for

The Painswick’s namesake town is host to various boutiques, antique shops and craft outlets, but for bigger stores, head to Bath or Cheltenham, both a short drive from the hotel. Stately homes and their manicured grounds surround your historic locale: choose from Sudeley Castle, Newark Park, Chavenage House and Frampton Court

Other enjoyable day-trip options include Painswick’s Rococo Gardens and the National Waterways Museum Gloucester. And if you’re hoping to hike or cycle the storied Cotswolds Way, part of its trail intersects through the town; make the trek up to Painswick Beacon and you’ll be rewarded with sweeping valley views.

Local restaurants

Near the village church and its collection of yew trees, The Falcon serves tempting trad-English fare in a 16th-century setting. There’s more old-school delight at The Oak, where crackling fireplaces are the cheek-rosing backdrop for artisan ales and hearty bistro-style dining. The Village Pub, opposite Barnsley House near Cirencester, is your local haunt for elevated pub grub, cooked using cuts from the Paddock Farm down the road. 

 

Local cafés

Admire the art as well as the baked goods at the Patchwork Mouse café on New Street in Painswick, where local artists showcase their talent amid the miniature sandwich cakes.

Reviews

Photos The Painswick reviews
Eva Wiseman

Anonymous review

By Eva Wiseman, On-the-go writer

As we drove up through Painswick, I was pleased to note these weren't the chocolate box Cotswolds of an American fantasy; the darling gift shops and immaculate lawns that come to mind when a wealthy relative speaks of a weekend away.

Though astoundingly beautiful, this area seemed to me beautiful in an altogether rougher way. Its roads untamed, its homes filled by people that actually live there, its pathways steep…or perhaps I was just distracted by the mud. Soon after dropping our bags at The Painswick – a Grade II-listed house built for a wealthy local rector in 1790 that sits grandly on a steep hill, its restaurant perched on the right, a highly wedding-able croquet lawn on the left – we set out for a walk.

There are a range of maps available, guiding guests on walks that range from those suitable for children right the way up to those aimed at people who like to suffer. We chose the second shortest, borrowing wellies from the hall, and still we exhausted ourselves.

At more than one point we found ourselves clambering over barbed wire, the spire of a church in the distance our only guide. We missed visiting Painswick Rococo Garden (the country's sole surviving complete rococo garden) and missed the grounds of St Mary's, the parish church where there are 99 yew trees – the devil, legend has it, will steal the 100th yew should it ever be planted. Whoops. But there were diversions across busy roads, through a private tennis club and, my favourite, over a stream in a stranger’s back garden. Be assured though, all this was simply due to my poor map reading rather than the fault of the hotel. At the hotel, detail is everything.

When we returned, coats caked in mud, new muscles developing in our thighs, I collapsed into a bath where a copy of Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie was propped up on the bath tray – the book is based on nearby Slad Valley. Detail.

Waiting in the room for us was a Nespresso machine and a jar of homemade cookies, which made us feel loved. And confident. Confident enough to pop down to the bar and ask for a refill, which we ate in bed.

There are 18 rooms in total, with those in the garden wing slightly more modest, but all have the same quaint little retro stylings. We watched the sun set over the Painswick valley from our window, before getting thirsty.

The bar takes itself very seriously. Situated beside a lounge with open fire, it is small with theatrical pretensions – it crouches under a coffered ceiling, dimly lit and glamorous. Ordering a Martini involved a pointed sort-of-quiz about vermouth which was fairly stressful.

We found ourselves back in the games room, where another family were lucky enough to witness me playing pool for the first time since 1994. But then it was time for dinner, and we trotted down to the restaurant, a dark and elegant wood-panelled room. The food here, overseen by award-winning chef Jamie McCallum, is excellent. Those classic British plates you’d expect in a Cotswolds hotel – something clever with lamb, hot little bread rolls, artichoke – but done with such care and precision that the couple on the table next to us finished their main courses, then appeared to order the same again.

Breakfast the next morning was similarly classy, with make-it-yourself bloody marys and home-made crumpets, alongside standard British menu options with little welcome twists – I had poached eggs, smashed avocado and dukkah: that nutty Egyptian spice mix beloved of Ottolenghi.

After breakfast I saw the valley for the first time in sunshine. Having felt as though I’d discovered this diamond in the rough, an exquisite hotel buried in mud, I looked down at the timbered post office, pretty lawns and stone cottages and realised, with disappointment, that Painswick is actually one of the most picturesque and idyllic valleys in Britain. Damn.

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Price per night from $266.80