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Cirencester doesn’t shout. It’s not Bourton-on-the-Water with its summer crowds, or Broadway with its tea rooms and coach parties. It’s a proper Cotswolds market town that gets on with things quietly, and is better for it.
We’re five minutes away at The Wild Duck in Ewen, a Grade II-listed pub with rooms, nineteen bedrooms and a kitchen that takes the weekend seriously. Cirencester makes an excellent reason to come. Here’s how to make a proper two days of it.
The Wild Duck is in Ewen, a small village on the edge of Cirencester’s countryside. It opened in early 2026 and was immediately named Best Pub with Rooms 2026 by The Times, which says something about how it arrived.
The nineteen bedrooms are each different: soft limewash walls by Edward Bulmer, well-chosen antiques, original features throughout. Some have private terraces. None feel like a hotel room in the usual sense. The bar is the kind you want to find at the end of a day out with real ales, a considered wine list, and a fire when the season calls for it.
Treatments are available through Solstice Wellbeing, whose therapists work from the pub’s two treatment rooms using 100 Acres products. It’s an easy addition to a Saturday afternoon, particularly if someone in your party has done more walking than they planned.
Cirencester was Corinium Dobunnorum to the Romans: the second-largest town in Roman Britain after London. The Corinium Museum on Park Street holds one of the best Roman collections in the country, including floor mosaics lifted from the town, Roman glassware and carved stone that gives you a genuine sense of how well the place was doing two thousand years ago. It takes about ninety minutes to do properly and is worth every one of them.
The wool church at the centre of Cirencester is one of the finest perpendicular Gothic churches in England. Built on the proceeds of the medieval wool trade, it’s large enough to feel like a cathedral and specific enough to feel local. The south porch is the entrance and it opens onto the market square, which is as it should be. Worth fifteen minutes even if churches aren’t usually your thing.
Cirencester market runs on Mondays and Fridays in the main square. Not a farmers’ market in the artisan-produce sense, but a proper working market with a mix of stalls — food, hardware, clothing — that suggests the town hasn’t entirely given itself over to tourism. The Friday market is the larger of the two.
Arlington Row in Bibury is one of the most photographed streets in England. Go early on a weekend morning or on a weekday, by mid-morning in summer the car park fills and it gets busy. The stretch of the Coln Valley around it is genuinely beautiful and the trout farm next to the village has been there since 1902. A morning out, back for lunch.
The Cotswold Water Park sits just south of Cirencester, a network of over 150 lakes formed from old gravel workings. In summer it’s popular for wild swimming, paddleboarding and cycling. Not everyone’s idea of a Cotswolds weekend, but if you’re travelling with children or want something active on the Saturday morning, it’s worth knowing about. The nature reserves around the lakes are good for birdwatching and walking at any time of year.
The Thames Path passes close to Ewen, and short circular routes through Kemble and back are well-marked and good underfoot. An hour and a half at a comfortable pace. The Ewen valley is flat, open countryside. Not dramatic, but quietly good, which is its own thing. More on our activities and walking routes.
Lobster nights run every Friday throughout the summer: half a lobster, crispy fries and sparkling wine for £35. It’s worth knowing about when you’re planning which night to arrive.
The Wild Duck is in Ewen, GL7 6BY, five minutes from Cirencester town centre by car, ten minutes on a bicycle if the weather is good. The pub takes table bookings and room bookings online. Summer weekends fill quickly; a couple of months ahead is sensible for July and August. Mid-week stays are more available and Cirencester is no less good on a Tuesday.
Dogs are welcome in dog-friendly rooms and certain areas of the pub. Mention it when you book.
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