Guiting Power

Guiting Power is one of the most secluded and unspoiled villages in the Cotswolds, lying in a shallow valley on the high wolds between Winchcombe and Stow-on-the-Wold. Its name comes from the River Guiting, a tributary of the Windrush that rises nearby. Despite lying only a few miles from some of the most heavily visited parts of the Cotswolds, the village sees relatively few visitors and retains an entirely genuine rural atmosphere throughout the year.

The village is centred on a small green with a war memorial, from which lanes fan out to the church, the pub and the scattered farms and cottages that make up the settlement. The Norman church of St Michael contains some fine medieval stonework, and the whole composition of church, green, pub and farmhouses represents the Cotswold village in one of its most authentic forms.

The Guiting Power Allotment Trust has managed communal allotments here since the nineteenth century — a rare survival of a traditional rural institution. The surrounding countryside offers excellent walking across the high wolds, and the adjacent village of Naunton, a mile to the east, is similarly quiet and equally worth visiting. Temple Guiting, a little further down the valley, completes an exceptional trio of villages along this forgotten stretch of the Guiting Brook.