Nine of us, one dog,
and a nine-seater.

Saturday's loop in green, Sunday's run south in rust. Tap a pin for what happens there.

4 September · get to the house · 122 miles in the van

1. 16:00

   Rayson lands RK 144 from Berlin

   Off at 16:00, then the border and the walk to the rental village. Reckon on the desk at about 16:50, not 16:20.

2. 17:00

   Collects the van Green Motion, Novotel Stansted

   The Hertz booking is cancelled, so this is Green Motion now, and it is the off-airport one. Novotel Stansted, Round Coppice Road CM24 1SF, reached by the Bay 18 shuttle rather than walked to. Booking 4SOBB7, £337.43 at the desk, back Monday 17:30. The shuttle is the difference: there is no turning up early and being handed the keys, so plan on the 17:30 booking time rather than 17:00. Photograph every panel and both wheel sets before driving off and get any existing mark onto the agreement, because the card cover requires it.

3. 1 hr 11 63 mi · M11, M25, M40 · allow 1 hr 30
4. 18:25

   The rest of us get there first Beaconsfield station

   Chiltern from Marylebone, 20 minutes, two an hour, £11 to £13 off-peak, dogs free. Leave Marylebone 18:00. The Old Town is 0.7 miles south, a fifteen-minute walk or two minutes once the van has us.

   🅿️ Altons Car Park, Burkes Road HP9 1PB. Surface, no height barrier, 165 spaces, and it is flat all the way. Sources disagree badly on how far: one has Burkes Road running straight into Aylesbury End at two minutes, another puts the Old Town 0.7 to 0.8 miles off, which is fifteen to twenty minutes in the dark with nine people and a dog. Budget for the long one. Charges run 08:00 to 20:00 Monday to Saturday, so buy a ticket for the first stretch and it is free from 20:00. Card, cash or RingGo, searching "Altons, Beaconsfield" in the app. Skip the station car park: APCOA barrier it at 2.10m, which the Trafic clears by about 13cm, but it is a mile from the Old Town, so it buys a walk and nothing else. If Altons is full, Warwick Road HP9 2PE is the same terms and also has no barrier, but it is back down by the station.📍 Altons📍 Warwick Rd

5. 18:50 to 19:20

   Van arrives the honest window

   Free-flow is 1 hr 11 from Round Coppice Road, but there is no early release to buy back what the shuttle, the paperwork and the walk-round cost. The M25 between J27 and J16 at Friday teatime is the one stretch that reliably runs 20 to 40 minutes over, and it is unavoidable whichever way he goes. Nobody books a table for 19:00.

1. 1 hr 19 59 mi · M40 to J8, then the A40
2. 20:40 or 22:05

   Bears Court, No. 8 Little Rissington

   Sat-nav GL54 2SF, then find No. 8. The owners have confirmed the address as 8 Bears Court, Little Rissington GL54 2SF. The door is left open from 16:00 and the keys are on the kitchen side, so there is nobody to meet and no arrival time to hit. Two allocated spaces in the private car park.📍 Bears Court

5 September · the village loop · 59 miles, 2 hr 02 of driving

1. 09:35

   Leave the house

   Bourton takes 300,000 visitors a year against 4,000 residents, and the coaches land mid-morning, so the 09:50 arrival is the fixed point. Twenty minutes earlier under the old base. The extra nine is for nine people and a dog getting out of a house.

2. 6 min 2.0 mi · the lane down to the A429 · allow 15
3. 09:50

   Bourton-on-the-Water 1 hr 10

   Five low stone bridges over the Windrush, shallow enough for the dog to stand in.

   🅿️ Rissington Road GL54 2BN. 192 bays, no barrier, the biggest car park in the village. £4.40 for the two-hour band, and charges do not start until 10:00, so a 09:50 arrival buys ten free minutes and the pick of the bays. Card or PayByPhone, location code 804760. No Cotswold council car park takes cash. Five to eight minutes on the flat into the High Street and the bridges. Toilets at the car park, 30p, contactless. Full: Bourton Vale, privately run, 3.0m barrier, about £5 for two hours, five minutes in.📍 Rissington Rd📍 Bourton Vale

   • 👀 What to look at · 1 hr 10
   • The five low bridges over the Windrush. Three to five minutes in from the car park, free, and the only water the dog gets into. Shoot from the green on the upstream side rather than the crowded bridge by the Old Manse: same cottages, more room for nine people, and at ten in the morning the water is still empty.
   • St Lawrence's church, two minutes off the High Street and tucked behind the shopfronts, which is why almost nobody finds it. Fourteenth-century chancel under an eighteenth-century domed tower, free, open in daylight. Pet dogs inside are unconfirmed, so somebody holds the lead outside for the two minutes it takes.
   • The paid ones all lose to ninety minutes. Birdland is £14.95 a head, takes dogs on a short lead and eats 45 minutes. The Model Village is about £5 but bans pet dogs, so one of us sits out. The Motoring Museum, £9.50, is the only one that takes the dog in and suits two or three people slipping off for twenty minutes.
   • Skip the Dragonfly Maze. Same-day kiosk tickets only, no booking, and half an hour to do properly.
4. 32 min 13.7 mi · lanes via the Barringtons
5. 11:35

   Bibury Arlington Row

   A seventeenth-century weavers' terrace, ten minutes on foot from the pub. The roadside lay-by fills by nine, so we park at the Catherine Wheel, which is where the table is anyway. Twenty-five minutes here, then back for 12:00.

   🅿️ The Catherine Wheel's own car park, Arlington GL7 5ND. Free for diners, no barrier. Reviewers call it small and nobody publishes a space count, so ring 01285 740250 and tell them a nine-seater is arriving at 11:35. Down the hill and over the bridge to Arlington Row is 500 to 700m, eight to ten minutes each way, uneven stone at the row itself and a narrow footbridge over the mill stream. Toilets on The Street opposite the footbridge, 40p. Full: Bibury Trout Farm, Ablington Lane GL7 5NL, £5 to £10, 300m flat along The Street. Nothing else is left in the village. Gloucestershire closed the centre's coach bays for good in May 2025 and the free area opposite the Trout Farm is cordoned off.📍 Catherine Wheel📍 Trout Farm

   • 👀 What to look at · 25 min, then lunch
   • Arlington Row, five to eight minutes downhill from the pub. A fourteenth-century wool store turned weavers' terrace, and the one on the inside of the British passport. The cottages are lived in, so it is a look from the lane and not a photograph on somebody's doorstep.
   • Stand on Rack Isle for the shot. The water meadow opposite is National Trust, level, and wide enough to spread nine people out. It is the classic angle and it keeps everyone off the residents' thresholds, which the village has got sharp about.
   • St Mary's, two minutes further on Cemetery Road, if the twenty-five stretches. There has been a church on the spot since 899: Saxon chancel columns, a Norman doorway, medieval glass. Free, and the thing nearly every visitor drives past.
   • Skip the trout farm before lunch. £9.50 a head and it does not fit in the gap. Bibury Court is a private house again since 2015, so there is nothing to see and nowhere to walk.
6. 12:00

   Lunch, The Catherine Wheel booked, table for nine

   12:00, and it is the first hard time of the day. Sixteenth century, open fires, dogs on the informal side, own car park, which is also the Bibury parking plan. Arriving 11:35 gives exactly the twenty-five minutes Arlington Row needs: ten there, five looking, ten back. Out at about 13:15.

7. 42 min 21.5 mi · the longest hop of the day
8. 14:00

   Daylesford 50 min

   A farm shop the size of a supermarket. The food hall is the good bit and the restaurant holds a Michelin Green Star. Skip the homeware and clothing.

   🅿️ Its own car park, GL56 0YG. Free, no barrier, no time limit, and the easiest stop of the weekend. Large, flat, level access straight into the food hall, under 100m from any bay. Toilets on site and free. Dogs on a lead everywhere outside and inside the farmshop, though not in the Trough restaurant, and there are tie-up points at each entrance. There is no second car park here, but 14:00 is past the lunch rush.📍 Daylesford

   • 👀 What to look at · 50 min
   • The food hall is the sight. Cheese room, bakery counter and wine stall are the three worth the walk, and reviewers single out the almond croissants.
   • The garden and homeware store is two or three minutes across the yard, free to wander, and the flower displays are the photograph if anyone wants one.
   • The dog comes in. On a lead in the farmshop, the courtyard and the grounds, but not inside the café or the Trough.
   • There is no farm to look at. The walled kitchen garden, the cookery school and the Bamford spa are all pre-booked, with no walk-up version of any of them, and there is no animal viewing. Forty-five minutes of shopping is the whole stop.
9. 14 min 6.1 mi · through Kingham to the A361
10. 15:05

    Diddly Squat shuts 16:30

    Six miles on from Daylesford, which is the only reason it works. No booking and no way to check ahead, so the queue is the whole gamble: twenty minutes on a quiet morning, an hour on a Sunday, two and a half at its worst. Read it from the car park and drive on if it is bad, because Stow is the next stop whatever you decide. Card only, no cash. The dog stays outside on a lead.

    🅿️ Its own field opposite the shop, OX7 3PE. Free, attendant-directed, no barrier. This is a second gamble on top of the queue. When the main field fills, the overflow field is signed 4x4 only, at your own risk, with no recovery offered, and a nine-seater van is not a 4x4. There is no other car park within walking distance, so if the main field is full at 15:05 that is the decision made for us. Both fields shut at 17:00, half an hour after the shop.📍 Diddly Squat

    • 👀 What to look at · honestly, not much
    • It is a shop, a queue and a sign. No farm tour, no animals to see, no marked walk and no viewpoint over the Cotswolds. The countryside is what you get through the windscreen on the way in.
    • The photograph is the roadside DIDDLY SQUAT FARM sign, which has its own pull-in short of the shop rather than being in the car park.
    • The Lady Garden, the honeybee garden with tables behind the shop, is where the dog and whoever is not queueing should wait.
    • The shop shuts at 16:30, half an hour before the fields. Food service in the café stops at 15:00 and the bar runs to 16:30. Arriving 15:05 leaves about 85 minutes, not the two hours the field deadline suggests.
11. 18 min 10.3 mi · B4450 through Bledington, then the A436
12. 16:25

    Stow-on-the-Wold

    The only loop stop with parking a nine-seater can use. Market Square, the antique shops on Sheep Street, St Edward's church two minutes away with the yews flanking the north door. The Tolkien story about that door is invented.

    🅿️ Fosseway GL54 1BX. Free, 98 bays plus 3 disabled, open seven days including overnight, no maximum stay. The council's own listing gives it no height restriction, and no Cotswold council car park has one. Ten minutes on flat pavement into Market Square. Park once and do both: the Tesco at 17:25 shares that postcode and sits next door, so the van does not move between the town and the shop. Market Square itself is a handful of on-street bays and the wrong place to leave a five-metre van at teatime. Full: Maugersbury Road GL54 1HH, which has five coach bays and is the surest thing in Stow for a long vehicle, pay and display on code 804762, charges 08:00 to 18:00 and free after. Toilets in Market Square, 40p. The Maugersbury Road ones are closed.📍 Fosseway📍 Maugersbury Rd

    • 👀 What to look at · the afternoon gap
    • Market Square, ten minutes in on flat pavement. The stocks are on the green beside the market cross and St Edward's Hall, weathered and taped off at times. An online claim that they went away for repair has no council or press source behind it, so it is a look-and-see.
    • St Edward's church, two minutes off the square, free and open daily, roughly to 17:00 in summer, which a 16:25 arrival just catches. The north door between the two yews is the photograph, on the churchyard path round the north side. Stand back a few metres to get both trees in. The Tolkien story about it is folklore, and the Stow Civic Society says so itself.
    • Fleece Alley and the tures, off Back Walls into the square. Medieval sheep-drove alleys about two feet wide, five minutes, and almost nobody leaves the square to find them. Well Lane has the old wells and the view out to the Iron Age ramparts.
    • Antiques on Sheep Street and Church Street. Tudor House opens 10:00 to 17:00 on a Saturday. Styles of Stow is Monday to Friday, so do not walk anyone to it. The gift shops right on the square are tourist-priced and worth nothing.
13. 17:25

    The shop Tesco, Fosseway

    Tesco superstore, Fosseway GL54 1BX, open to 22:30 on a Saturday. It is in Stow, on the A429 we drive out on, so the shop costs no detour at all. Buy for one oven and one hob, and remember two of us are vegetarian.

    🅿️ Already parked. Tesco's own lot and the council's Fosseway car park share GL54 1BX and sit side by side, so stay in the council one from 16:25 and walk across. It is free, unlimited and has no cameras, where a supermarket lot can run a two or three hour cap even when it costs nothing.📍 Tesco

14. 18:00

    Lower Slaughter optional

    Eight minutes out from Stow, now that the route no longer runs past it. Best walk on the trip: flat, a mile and a half along the Eye to Upper Slaughter and back. Sunset is 19:49, so there is light for it. The only cost is the shopping sitting in the van for an hour, so buy the chilled things last or do this first and shop on the way past at 18:40.

    🅿️ The Square, Upper Slaughter GL54 2JE. Free, on-street, a handful of spaces. Starting from the Upper end is right and it is worth knowing why: Lower Slaughter's roadside spaces opposite the Manor are effectively hotel guests only and gone by breakfast. Neither village has an actual car park, and nothing confirms a five-metre van can turn in The Square, so walk the last corner on foot first if it looks tight. The walk is a mile each way along the Eye, twenty to twenty-five minutes, flat and step-free, one stone footbridge, muddy after rain. Dog on the lead, it crosses grazing. No toilets in either village. Full: the layby past the Old Mill, five or six cars, or Rissington Road back in Bourton, which adds a mile on foot each way and takes the walk out of the evening.📍 Upper Slaughter📍 the walk, on foot

    • 👀 What to look at · the best walk of the weekend
    • Before setting off, five minutes at The Square itself. The green was rebuilt by Lutyens in 1906 and the Eye crosses it as a ford. St Peter's is a short walk off it, twelfth century with Burne-Jones work inside and usually unlocked. Upper Slaughter is a Doubly Thankful village, one of the few that lost nobody in either war, and the rolls of honour are in the village hall rather than on a memorial.
    • The walk is the Warden's Way, a mile each way of level marked path along the Eye through meadows, twenty to twenty-five minutes. Muddy after rain, dog on the lead, it crosses grazing.
    • At Lower Slaughter, the stone footbridges and the mill's red-brick chimney reflected in the water are the shot, taken from the bridge by the mill looking downstream along the cottages.
    • The Old Mill has been shut since April 2025 for a £4m rebuild with no confirmed reopening, so no museum, no shop and no tea room, and the temporary kiosk keeps weekend hours to about 16:00 and would be shut anyway. The Manor is a hotel and private. Nothing here costs anything, which is the point of coming at six.
15. 10 to 12 min A429 and the lane · 10 straight from Tesco, 12 from the Slaughters
16. 19:10

    Back at the house

    Parking is on site, so the van sits outside the door. Straight home from the shop instead is 17:55, which is the version where dinner is not late.

17. 19:15

    Cook at the house the plan for now

    Sheep on Sheep Street stopped taking the booking, and rather than chase a table for nine at a day's notice we shop and cook. It buys back the whole evening: no sober driver, no 18:30 deadline, and the hot tub is open until 22:00 rather than being something we get back to. The kitchen is one electric oven and one electric hob, so this wants one big thing rather than nine plated ones, with a vegetarian version that is not an afterthought for two of us. Restaurant numbers are kept in section 07 in case the mood changes on the day.

Bourton-on-the-Water

The bridges, and the only water the dog gets into. First stop because it is the busiest.

Bibury

Arlington Row, and the lunch that solves the parking.

Daylesford

Farm shop with a Green Star restaurant attached. Buy food, skip the homeware.

Diddly Squat

Fourteen minutes on from Daylesford. This is the normal queue, and it decides whether we bother.

Stow-on-the-Wold

Dinner, the only van-friendly parking on the loop, and the unfilled afternoon.

Lower Slaughter

Optional. Best walk on the itinerary, and it eats an hour of the Stow gap.

6 September · Oxford, then home on the M40 · 88 miles. The Castle Combe plan below was dropped on the morning

1. 09:45

   Pack, breakfast, check out

   Checkout is 10:00, not 11:00. That is the one place the new house is stricter than the old one, and it makes 09:45 a deadline rather than a choice. It also gets us to Castle Combe before the car park fills. The owners ask for the rubbish to go to the blue bins in the car park and the beds to be stripped, so that is ten minutes of the morning spoken for.

2. 1 hr 05 42.1 mi · A429, then the A46 past Bath
3. 10:50

   Castle Combe 1 hr 15, to 12:05

   No parking in the village at all. Wiltshire runs plate cameras and a recovery truck 07:00 to 19:00, and £150 plus the fine gets a towed van back. Dunns Lane visitor car park, then ten minutes on foot.

   🅿️ Dunns Lane, pay and display, card, coins or the MiPermit app, no barrier found. Search "Castle Combe Car Park" rather than trusting a postcode: listings split between SN14 7HU and SN14 7HH. This is the weakest link of the weekend: there is no overflow car park anywhere in Castle Combe. Wiltshire's own reporting says Dunns Lane reaches capacity regularly and the council is still being lobbied for a second site. If it is full there is nothing to fall back on but the 95 bus in from Chippenham or turning round. Leaving the house at 09:15 instead of 09:45 lands us at 10:20, and checkout is 10:00 either way, so the half hour costs an earlier alarm and buys the only real defence we have. Vans are sometimes charged the coach rate rather than the car rate, so read the tariff board before paying. The walk in is ten to fifteen minutes downhill on a narrow lane shared with cars and with no pavement in places, and fifteen to twenty back up, which is the leg to budget for. The circuit is a few miles off and has nothing on that day: the drifting runs Friday and Saturday and the next meeting is the 12th, so no race traffic in the lanes.📍 Castle Combe car park

   • 👀 What to look at · about 45 min actually in the village
   • Go into the church first, not last. 6 September is the first Sunday of the month, and St Andrew's runs Holy Communion at 11:00 on the first and third. Arriving 10:20 and walking down puts us in the village about 10:35, so look at 10:40 and be out by 10:50 rather than walking into a service. Dogs inside are not confirmed either way, so the churchyard is the safe assumption.
   • The faceless clock inside St Andrew's is the real thing, not a story. One of the oldest working faceless clocks in the country, probably late fifteenth century, no dial and no hands, it only strikes the bell. It was moved down from the tower in 1984 onto a plinth you can stand over. Also in there: the fan vault, the thirteenth-century carved tomb of Sir Walter de Dunstanville, and a small display on the films. Free, donations.
   • The Market Cross is a minute from the church where the lanes meet, roofed and medieval, and it is where the horse fair in War Horse was shot in 2011, with the tarmac buried under fake mud. Stardust made the village Stormhold in 2007 and The Wolfman made it Blackmoor. The Doctor Dolittle everyone means is the 1967 one, not the 2020 remake.
   • Down to Water Lane, the weavers' cottages and the packhorse bridge over the By Brook. Seventeenth century, and the most photographed thing in the village. Stand on the bridge and shoot back up at the cottages with the hillside behind, which is the picture people come for, rather than up the street at the church. Public toilets are on Water Lane just past the bridge.
   • The walk down is steeper and rougher than the map makes it look. Budget the full fifteen minutes each way for nine people and a dog, which leaves about forty-five on the ground. Past the bridge the path signed to Long Dean loses the crowd in three minutes, but there is no room for it in this stop.
4. 11 min 3.9 mi · narrow lanes, B4039
5. 12:15

   Lunch, The Salutation Inn needs booking

   Two miles out at The Gibb on the B4039, which is the point: seventeenth century, barn restaurant, beer garden, dogs inside, own car park. Hardest of the three tables, so ring it first.

   🅿️ Its own car park, SN14 7LH, free for diners, no barrier reported. Sat-nav that postcode: it is what the pub, CAMRA and the trade listings all give. Reviews split between "easy parking" and "limited" and nobody publishes a count, so the call that books the table also asks whether a nine-seater fits: 01249 782083. If it does not, drop eight at the door and put the van on the verge.📍 The Salutation

6. 2 hr 07 100.8 mi · M4 east from J17
7. 15:55

   London

   Van stays with Rayson overnight. He runs it to Stansted on Monday, 44 miles, 75 minutes, due back 17:30. This one is now settled: his flight is FR 176 at 20:00, so there is two and a half hours between dropping the van and the gate.

Castle Combe

Worth the detour, and the reason Sunday runs 147 miles instead of 100.

Cheltenham

Where we were going to sleep until 11 August. Half an hour from the new house if anyone wants the Regency terraces anyway.

Settled on 11 August. Bears Court, Little Rissington, booked direct and non-refundable

Measured road times between real addresses. The Saturday column is the whole loop from that base: out to Bourton, round through Bibury and Daylesford, into Stow, back.

One vehicle, one name on the agreement, no backup behind it, and a £2,500 hold on his card

All dog-friendly, all take bookings. The Catherine Wheel is booked, the other two are not

Nine ways, before any food or drink

The 372 miles: 122 Friday, 59 Saturday, 147 Sunday, 44 for the van back to Stansted on Monday. The move east took 28 miles off the weekend and £140 onto the house, so the per-head figure went up by about £15 and the driving came down by 51 minutes. The old Cheltenham line was £360, and it is gone rather than refunded.

The things that go wrong on the day

Every car park on this route is a surface lot or on-street, and not one of them has a height barrier. The two-metre question does not come up once between Beaconsfield on Friday and the M4 home on Sunday. What does come up is capacity: three of the ten fill, and two of those have nowhere to go afterwards.

Ordered by when it stops being possible

1. Ring the Catherine Wheel about the van

   01285 740250. The table is booked, the car park is not, and reviewers call it small. Bibury has nothing else left: the coach bays closed permanently in May 2025 and the free area by the Trout Farm is cordoned off, so the fallback is the Trout Farm at £5 to £10 and a 300m walk.

   Today

2. Ring the Salutation Inn

   01249 782083, SN14 7LH. Sunday 12:15, nine plus a dog, and confirm the car park takes the van. Hardest table of the three.

   This week

3. Decide Sunday: 09:15 or 09:45

   Dunns Lane is the only car park Castle Combe has, it fills, and there is no overflow anywhere in the village. Out at 09:15 puts us there at 10:20 instead of 10:50. Checkout is 10:00 whichever we choose, so it costs one earlier alarm and nothing else. Decide it on Saturday night, not on Sunday morning.

   Saturday night

4. Find a Saturday dinner table

   Sheep on Sheep Street is no longer available, so ring the Bell on 01451 870916 first, then the Old Stocks Inn on 01451 830666 asking for the bar or library, then the Stag on 01451 830674. Nine, a dog indoors, and two vegetarians who need more than one dish between them. If Stow will not take nine, the Lamb at Great Rissington is half a mile from the house on 01451 820388, but using it Saturday takes it away from Friday. Nobody has confirmed that any of them can seat nine at one table.

   Tonight

5. Fill the Stow afternoon

   Down to 1 hr 20 now Diddly Squat is in. Lower Slaughter is free and eats most of it. Broadway Tower is 20 minutes each way and the better view.

   This week

6. Rayson: pull the Chase letter of coverage

   From chasecardbenefits.com, which needs his card number. Check it has a PIN, is a credit card, is in his own name, clears a £2,500 hold, and does not expire before November.

   This week

7. Green Motion, and Rayson has hours not days

   Hertz is cancelled, so Green Motion is the only van. Four things, all on him, all before the desk: a credit card in his own name with a PIN and £2,500 of headroom, the Chase letter of coverage from chasecardbenefits.com, and his licence checked against their refused-countries list. The vehicle itself is settled, a nine-seat Trafic Sport. Their own excess product voids the card benefit, so do not buy it at the counter.

   Today

8. Nine people, six beds

   The unit 8 listing is three bedrooms sleeping six: a king with en-suite, a second king, and two singles. No sofa bed is listed, and the hot tub is rated for six. Ring Sean and Maddy on 07912 089733 before anyone unpacks and ask what the extra sleeping is, or whether a second unit on the estate is free. The kitchen question is answered and the answer is smaller than we assumed: one electric oven, an electric hob, microwave, fridge, freezer, dishwasher, washing machine and tumble dryer. No second oven, no five-ring hob. Parking is two allocated spaces, which the van fits.

   Today

9. Friday, A or B

   Deliberately left to the group and settled on the night. Somebody rings the Lamb on 01451 820388 from Beaconsfield around 19:15 and asks whether they will still be serving at 21:00. Yes and we roll and eat there. Otherwise we eat in the Old Town and get in at 22:05.

   On the night

Dropped, kept here so nobody re-proposes them