St Mary’s Church

The Cotswolds


Painswick centres on this fine 14th-century, Perpendicular Gothic wool church, surrounded by 18th-century tabletop tombs and clipped yew trees sculpted to resemble giant ice lollies. Legend has it that only 99 trees could ever grow here, as the devil would shrivel the 100th. To celebrate the millennium, they planted one anyway, and – lo and behold! – another one toppled. At the foot of the churchyard there’s a rare set of iron stocks.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby The Cotswolds attractions

1. Painswick Rococo Garden

0.55 MILES

England's only surviving rococo garden, half a mile north of Painswick, was laid out by Benjamin Hyett in the 1740s as a vast 'outdoor room'. Restored to…

2. Museum in the Park

2.76 MILES

Amid amenities like a leisure pool in Stroud’s municipal park, 800m northwest of the centre, this 18th-century mansion tells the history of the town and…

3. National Waterways Museum Gloucester

5.85 MILES

The largest warehouse on the Gloucester Docks, the towering, red-brick, 1873 Llanthony hosts a hands-on museum dedicated to Britain’s inland waterways,…

4. Tailor of Gloucester Museum & Shop

6.05 MILES

Tucked into a narrow lane opposite the cathedral, this cutesy museum pays homage to Beatrix Potter and her magical Tailor of Gloucester storybook. Potter…

5. Gloucester Cathedral

6.09 MILES

Gloucester’s spectacular cathedral is among the first and finest examples of the English Perpendicular Gothic style. Benedictine monks built a Norman…

6. Gloucester Life Museum

6.14 MILES

Housed in a superb series of neighbouring 16th- and 17th-century Tudor and Jacobean timber-framed buildings, this creaky-floored folk museum examines…

7. Woodchester Mansion

6.25 MILES

When work on grand, graceful Woodchester Mansion, off the B4066 3 miles north of Uley, was abandoned in the mid-1860s, the roof was on but the house was…

8. Nympsfield Long Barrow

6.86 MILES

This 5000-year-old oval-shaped long barrow (earth mound) occupies a spectacular hilltop location. Successive excavations have uncovered at least 13 human…

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