The Hive Cotswolds Review, Part One: Great Coffee, Lovely Setting, and One Big Question

Some places are easy to research before you visit.

You check the website, look at the menu, find the opening times and know more or less what to expect before you have even left the house.

The Hive Cotswolds was not one of those places.

I had seen The Cotswold Range mentioned before, knew there was archery and air rifle shooting somewhere along Spine Road West, and had recently started seeing The Hive name appearing alongside it.

But trying to work out exactly what The Hive actually was proved surprisingly difficult.

Was it an activity centre? A café? Somewhere you could simply turn up for coffee? Was there food? Was there anything to do if you weren't booked onto one of the activities?

There was no website I could find, no menu, and no obvious answer to the simple question of who was actually behind it. For somewhere positioning itself as a destination, that is worth noting before we even begin.

So we decided to go and have a look.

A quick word on what this is. We went to reconnoitre the place rather than to work through everything it offers, so this is part one of two. This piece covers the coffee, the grounds and the general feel of arriving without a booking. The archery, air rifles and laser clay, which are the established heart of the site, are for a return visit and a second piece.

We had also been ill for the best part of ten days by this point and were finally starting to feel human again.

Our requirements were fairly simple.

Some sunshine.

A decent coffee.

Somewhere pleasant to sit outside.

And, preferably, a bacon roll, toast, or something vaguely breakfast-shaped.

That last part would prove more ambitious than expected.

Arriving at The Hive

We arrived at around 9:45 am.

The Hive sits along Spine Road West in the Cotswold Lakes, and despite knowing roughly where it was, the entrance still seemed to creep up on me slightly.

Once inside, though, my first impression was very positive.

The site was wonderfully quiet.

There was only one other couple there with two small children, and after the increasingly busy summer holiday traffic around South Cerney and the Cotswold Lakes, it felt refreshingly peaceful.

The Hive is far greener than I had expected.

Paths wind through lawns, trees, planting and wildlife areas, with the various buildings and activities spread around the site rather than everything being crammed together.

There are picnic tables and other outdoor seating, a large grass area, activity spaces and a substantial timber building called The Canopy.

My initial reaction was basically that this looked great.

And more importantly, it was only just up the road.

Coffee, brownies and the missing breakfast

We headed straight for The Coffee Cup.

This is a small off-grid café cabin on the site, powered by solar energy, and the coffee itself was genuinely good.

I had a proper cappuccino rather than something resembling hot brown water from a machine, which is always a promising start.

We also had chocolate brownies, which were very nice.

Then came the bill.

Two coffees and two brownies came to £17.50. One cappuccino and one brownie was £8.75.

That felt steep. The quality was there, but £8.75 is a lot for a coffee and a brownie, and it is worth going in knowing that.

The bigger issue was that brownies were roughly the extent of it.

The food selection on our visit was extremely limited. There were brownies and, from memory, possibly a sausage roll, but not really anything resembling breakfast or lunch.

For two people who had barely eaten properly for ten days and had turned up quietly hoping for a bacon roll, that was a small disappointment.

If you are visiting The Hive expecting breakfast, sandwiches or a proper lunch, I would check what is available first. At least when we visited, this was somewhere for coffee and cake rather than somewhere to arrive hungry.

I will come back to why that matters more than it first appears.

A surprisingly good place to do very little

Coffee acquired, we found a table in the sunshine.

And this is where The Hive really began to win me over.

There are simple games scattered around the grounds that you can just pick up and play.

We started with cornhole.

For anyone unfamiliar with it, you throw beanbags towards a raised wooden board and attempt to land them either on the board or through the hole.

It sounds remarkably simple.

It also becomes surprisingly competitive remarkably quickly.

For the record, I won.

Repeatedly.

From there we moved onto a ring on a string game, where you swing a metal ring and attempt to hook it onto a small hook fixed to a post.

Again, simple in theory.

Then came swingball.

None of this is particularly sophisticated, but that is rather the point.

We had gone out for a quick Sunday morning coffee and ended up spending almost an hour there, playing games, sitting in the sunshine and generally not doing very much at all.

After the previous ten days, that was exactly what we needed.

Nature is a big part of The Hive

One of the things that struck me most during the visit was how peaceful the setting felt.

It was still early enough that the August sunshine was bright and warm without becoming unbearably hot, and while we sat outside there was a constant soundtrack of insects and wildlife around us.

The natural setting isn't accidental either.

According to the information dotted around the grounds, the site includes native ponds, wildflower areas, tree planting and wildlife habitats, with signage explaining some of what has been planted.

There are also solar panels, rainwater harvesting and other sustainability measures around the site. The Coffee Cup operates off-grid using solar power, and The Canopy uses solar lighting. The Cotswold Range also says it has committed one per cent of its turnover to Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust.

I am reporting those green credentials rather than vouching for them, since they come from the site's own signage and social media rather than anything I could independently confirm. But sitting there in the sunshine, listening to insects and birds with trees and planting all around, the environmental emphasis does feel like a genuine part of the place rather than something bolted on for marketing.

So what exactly is The Hive?

This was the question I couldn't properly answer before visiting.

The answer is slightly more interesting than I expected.

The activity business on the site is not new. The Cotswold Range has, by its own account, been operating since 2016, running archery and air rifle experiences from purpose built covered ranges. Laser Clay Cotswolds also operates from the site as an independent activity provider.

What is new is The Hive itself.

Earlier this year the existing venue began being developed under a broader Hive Cotswolds identity, bringing the different businesses and spaces together into one destination. A social media post from 19 April showed the site before much of the new branding and redevelopment had taken place. At the time, The Hive described the venue as being full of potential and said it was being shaped into an outdoor space built around nature, coffee and community.

Only a few months later, quite a lot has already changed. The Coffee Cup is operating, whether newly built or reworked. The Hive branding is in place. The Canopy has been developed into a proper indoor event and meeting space. There are games around the grounds and new facilities.

And this is where my one big question comes in.

The Canopy, and the question it raises

The Canopy is a large timber building overlooking the site, with proper tables and seating inside. It can accommodate around 38 people and is intended for events, meetings and groups. It is considerably more substantial than I had expected, and on a wet Cotswolds day it would be a genuine asset.

But it also throws the food gap into sharp relief.

Here is a site rebranding itself around nature, coffee and community, with an activity offer, a green mission and an indoor space that seats getting on for forty people. And the food, at least on our visit, ran to brownies and possibly a sausage roll.

You can shelter and seat 38 people under a beautiful new canopy. You cannot, as things stand, give them lunch.

A quiet coffee stop does not need a kitchen. But a place presenting itself as a destination, with an events space and a community vision, probably does need more than cake. That is not a complaint about the brownies, which were good. It is a question about whether the offer has caught up with the ambition.

At the moment I don't think it has.

The vision is clearly there. The setting is lovely, the coffee is good, the green thinking feels real and the Canopy is a proper piece of infrastructure. What is missing is the thing that turns a nice place to pause into a place you actually plan a couple of hours around. Right now the ambition is running ahead of the fundamentals, and the food is the most obvious example.

What about the archery and air rifles?

We didn't do them on this visit, and that is deliberate. This was the reconnaissance trip, and the activities are the subject of part two.

I hadn't realised before visiting that the archery and air rifle facilities are inside the purpose built covered range building, so I didn't see the ranges properly during our visit. Having looked into them since, they are clearly the established core of The Cotswold Range rather than a couple of targets in the grass, with covered lanes, different targets and challenges, and proper instructed sessions.

That matters for how you read this piece. The part of The Hive I have reviewed is the newest and least settled part. The part I haven't yet tried is the oldest and, by reputation, the strongest. So the question I have raised about whether the plan hangs together is exactly the question part two will test. If the activities are as good as their reviews suggest, they may well be where the whole thing makes sense.

Archery will almost certainly be our first return visit. After that, I can see the air rifles and laser clays getting a turn too.

Who is The Hive for?

At the moment, I think The Hive makes the most sense if you are already visiting for one of the activities. If one person in the family is doing archery while somebody else waits, there is somewhere pleasant to sit, coffee available and games to keep everyone occupied.

It also works well as a stopping point if you are travelling through the Cotswold Lakes. A sizeable group of cyclists arrived just as we were leaving, which demonstrated that use nicely, and there is a bike park near the main building.

Would I stop here again for coffee if I were passing? Happily. Would I make a special journey purely for coffee? Probably not at the moment. There are other places along the Spine Road and around the Cotswold Lakes with much larger food selections, so if the sole purpose of the trip was breakfast or lunch, I would choose one of those.

But that slightly misses what makes The Hive interesting. It isn't really trying to be another conventional Cotswolds café. It is trying to become something else, and it isn't quite there yet.

Would we go back?

Definitely.

We left at around 10.40am, having stayed almost an hour.

That is probably the best indication of how I felt about the place. We hadn't booked an activity. We didn't get the breakfast we had been hoping for. And yet we still spent almost an hour drinking coffee, eating brownies, playing games and sitting in the sunshine.

I liked The Hive. It is quiet, relaxed and refreshingly removed from some of the summer holiday chaos that surrounds the Cotswold Lakes at this time of year. The coffee is good, the grounds are lovely, the games are simple but great fun, and the environmental side feels genuine.

I just left with a question rather than a verdict. There is a real vision here, and some genuinely good facilities, but the offer hasn't quite caught up with the ambition yet, and until it does there is a question mark over whether it all hangs together as the destination it wants to be.

Which is exactly why we will be back. We are booking the experiences for early September, and part two will put the actual activities to the test. That may well be where the answer lies.

Next time, though, there will be bows and arrows involved.

And, if I get my way, breakfast beforehand.

I won the cornhole. We will see if I can win the archery.

Visiting The Hive Cotswolds

Location: The Hive, Spine Road West, Somerford Keynes, Cotswold Lakes, GL7 6GY. Search "The Cotswold Range" on Google Maps rather than relying on the postcode.

Getting there: Free on site parking, with plenty of space on our quiet Sunday morning, though it may be busier when activities are in full swing. Bike park near the main building.

Access: Dedicated buggy and wheelchair-friendly paths lead to the main buildings, from what we saw.

Facilities: Toilets and baby changing are in the Coffee Cup cabin. We did not notice any clear dog policy on our visit, so check ahead if you are bringing one.

Food and drink: Coffee and cake on our visit, from The Coffee Cup. Worth checking what food is available before you go if you are arriving hungry.

Activities: Archery, air rifle and laser clay are run on site by The Cotswold Range and Laser Clay Cotswolds, and require advance booking. We will cover these in part two, following a return visit in early September.