Distance: 9.6 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: medium
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Walk from Moreton in Marsh in northermost Gloucestershire, across the northwest Cotswolds to Broadway Hill in Worcestershire, which stands above the picturesque eponymous village of Broadway.
The Story
Route Notes
Getting Back
At the Heart of the Worcestershire Cotswolds
As the name infers Broadway in the far south east of Worcestershire, overshadowed by one of the highest parts of the Cotswolds escarpment, is named for a road. Specifically its unusually wide tree-lined high street lined with typical yellow Cotswold stone buildings is the quintessence of how people imagine the region.
The first documentary reference to the village dates back to the 10th Century, but Broadway does not appear to have been all that significant until the 17th Century when it became a staging post on the route from Worcester and the wider southwest Midlands to London. Much of the village’s contemporary core took on its current form at that time.
After the creation of a national railway network in the mid-19th Century reshaped the topography of travel across the UK Broadway’s connections to the outside world were reshaped. It stopped being a staging post on a key coach route in 1852 when the stage closed, but did obtain a small station on the old Stratford-upon-Avon to Cheltenham Railway Line, which was once an important cross country route. This closed in 1976 having been progressively rundown for years. These days the northern part of the route in a cycle track the Stratford-upon-Avon Greenway, while the southern stretch from Broadway to Cheltenham is the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, a heritage line.
This reorientation of the village during the 19th Century led to it becoming popular with certain kinds of artists and craft orientated designers. To this day there is a Gordon Russell Design Museum preserving and displaying work by the arts and crafts influenced designer who had a workshop in Broadway during the interwar period. Displaying the surprisingly close-ties between Worcestershire, south Warwickshire and Oxford, the Ashmolean Museum supports Broadway Museum and Art Gallery.
There is also, in typical Cotswolds fashion, a weird, superstitious, even brutal, stand of folk memory and tradition underlying the neat, pastoral, highly touristic surface of the village. Broadway Tower, on top of Broadway Hill, the second highest at 313 metres on the Cotswolds escarpment, was the site of the most tragic and gruesome episode of the Campden “Wonder”, a bizarre and ultimately horrific episode in mid-17th Century history.
However, these distant resonances aside, in common with the rest of the Cotswolds, of which Broadway in a northwestern outpost, the village is quaint, moneyed seeming, and would be quiet, if not for the hordes of tourists from across the world that descend upon it, especially at the warmer times of year.
Route Notes
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
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This walk from Moreton in Marsh in Gloucestershire to Broadway in Worcestershire begins from Moreton in Marsh Railway Station.
Exit the station in the direction of Moreton in Marsh high street – crossing over the footbridge – if arriving from the northwest, having travelled from the Midlands.
Cross the station’s forecourt and head towards the high street.
Upon reaching the high street, cross over the road, and to the right beside the town hall there is a narrow residential road called Corder’s Lane which you walk straight down. This road is waymarked for the Monarch’s Way long distance footpath, an utterly crazed route which tracks the route across southern central England Charles Stuart fled along after his rebel army was defeated by Parliamentary forces at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.
At the bottom of Corder’s Lane you pick up a snicket which runs past allotments to the edge of Moreton in Marsh.
Here you follow a well worn, well waymarked, footpath across the fields and through hedgerows towards a low tree crowned hill besides the grounds of the Batsford Park aboretum.
Follow the path uphill across a meadow into the trees, and then pick up a track running to the right through the woodland.
Presently on the left a vista looking downhill across the wolds towards the picturesque little village of Bourton-on-the-Hill opens up.
A little further on a “private” sign forces you to take a sharp right turn to pick up a narrower, but still well trodden footpath which leads you further uphill through the trees.
You cross a quiet country road and continue through some trees on the far side to reach open downland from which you get your first glimpse of the village of Blockley.
Continue straight ahead until you reach a tree flanked vantage point high above the village.
From here head left a little way before picking up a path on the right which runs steadily down the side of the wold, across scrubby ground, before coming out amidst meadows on the edge of the village.
Entering Blockley down an unpaved lane you follow a network of quiet roads around the edge of the village before reaching the main road.
Upon reaching the main road turn left and walk for some distance along the primarily residential high street.
Nearing the western edge of the village look out on your right for a steep narrow road off to the right. Turn right up this road and ascend passing a series of houses approaching the edge of Brockley.
Passing the last house in the village you pick up a bridleway, situated in a little hollow, which runs uphill carrying you away from the settlement.
Nearing the top of the wold the bridleway swings sharply to the right towards a farm, but you carry on straight ahead across the field in front of you.
At the summit you pass through some woodland and continue along the path across a field on the far side of the trees. You are now making your way across and around the edges of fields at the top of a plateau a little over 250 metres above sea level.
On the far side of the field you pick up a farm drive for a little way before veering off to the right onto a footpath along the edge of a field for a bit.
Having passed the grounds of the large Upton Wold Farm you head left, picking up the driveway once more, and walk along a tree lined avenue approaching the busy A424, here called Five Mile Drive.
Upon reaching the side of the A-road walk a short distance along the verge heading right until you are level with a footpath waymark on the opposite side of the road.
Cross over the road and follow the footpath through the trees on the far side, heading straight across the field on the far side.
You clamber over a stile across a fence line and descend to the bottom of a mini-wold which you cross to reach some woodland.
Descend downhill through the trees along a well worn path, to reach a narrow clearing, which you cross to reach a mature plantation of pine trees.
On the far side of these trees you pick up the path cross a couple of small fields approaching the back of Seven Wells Farm.
Upon reaching the farm the path takes you around the back of it until you reach a sturdy wooden ladder type stile which brings you out, after walking through a small cluster of trees, besides a public road.
When you reach the road, taking care, as it was somewhat busy with cars, bikers and other road users when I walked the route on a Saturday morning in early August, turn left.
Soon you reach a road junction at the point where Gloucestershire meets Worcestershire.
Here take the narrow road to the right running through woodland. This road runs practically along the top of the Cotswolds escarpment. Not that you can really tell as the trees are thick. This stretch was very busy when I walked the route, so exercise caution, though the drivers generally seemed to be aware of the fact there were likely to be pedestrians in the road along the section.
After some distance the trees thin and the mock gothic Broadway Tower, constructed in the 1790s, on the site where the gruesome and tragic executions in the Campden Wonder case had occurred 130 years previously, comes into view.
Reaching the entrance to the attraction there is a metal gateway which brings you to the path which leads towards the tower immediately opposite where you join the Cotswolds Way National Trail footpath which you use to descend the escarpment to Broadway.
Having taken in the views and the hilltop attractions head through the gate on the left onto the Cotswold Way and begin to descend Broadway Hill towards Broadway village.
The clearly marked path steadily slopes down across meadows and scrublands, generally populated with sheep, towards the village at the base of the escapement.
At the bottom of Broadway Hill a driveway between two houses leads you from open countryside onto the village’s main street lined with classic yellow stone Cotswold buildings.
Turn right to head into the centre of Broadway. Along the high street there are numerous shops, cafes and pubs.
There are also several bus stops, including one just beyond the village green, offering bus services to larger places nearby.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
Broadway has several bus services each day run by Stagecoach the major local operator and numerous community transport type routes. At the time of writing in August 2025 there were limited options for viable buses to major settlements with onward connections on weekdays, and fewer on weekends. The 1 and 1A serve the railway stations towns of Stratford-upon-Avon and Moreton-in-Marsh, both offering onward connections by both bus and rail. The northbound buses also serve Chipping Campden. At the time of writing the last bus to Stratford of the day was at 17:54, with a huge gap between that and the previous bus at 12:54, while the final service to Moreton was at 14:05. There was a later service by a community bus to Cheltenham, which also has numerous onward bus and train connections, departing at 17:39, but few viable options to that town earlier in the day. Checking for current times is advisable prior to setting off.