(S/E) From the front door of The Butchers Arms pub, turn left and walk downhill into the village, ignoring the left turning to Far End. Pass the village hall and phone-box at the bottom of the valley and climb to the war memorial beyond.
(1) Here bear right, past the church. Keep right along the road until you pass Yew Tree Cottage and reach a road junction opposite the Methodist Chapel. Follow a footpath just to the right of a bus shelter, which leads through trees to a stile. Follow the ascending tree-lined path beyond to a second stile.
(2) Turn right and follow the track along the woodland edge, with views over the Sheepscombe valley. At a junction, keep left, shortly afterwards emerging from the woodland at a junction of tracks with houses in view.
Keep left again, passing a house on your right, and at a gate swing left back into the woods. Keep right at a waymarked junction of paths by a National Trust sign for Blackstable Wood, and resume along a similar path as before, within the woodland edge.
(3) Beyond an interpretation board for Blackstable Wood, join the drive past Cockshoot House and walk out to a narrow lane. Turn right and swing left past houses to the road. Take the footpath opposite over a stile and bear right down the hillside, crossing a shallow valley to another stile and then another.
Walk half-left, crossing a track to a field gate with a blue bridleway waymark. Walk down the hill between two isolated trees to a gate in the far corner.
(4) Swing round to the left and cross the stream after a stile beside a gate. Turn left and walk down the field at the bottom of the slope with the stream on your left. Pass Highgrove House and join the drive beyond, passing a cattle grid.
When the drive swings right, uphill, take the footpath straight ahead. Beyond a small wooded stream this path turns right, uphill, initially alongside the trees to your right before striking out across the field to a stile.
(5) Turn left along the drive and join the road in Painswick. Follow the road ahead and left past a large house called Verlands and then right past the end of a lane that joins obliquely from the left. Walk up the street, passing Yew Tree House (1668) to emerge by the former Ebeneezer chapel.
Follow St Mary’s Street, opposite, past the Royal Oak, Cardynham House and the old bath-house with its 1924 Eric Gill inscription above the door. At the bottom of Victoria Street carry straight on, passing through the gates into the churchyard.
(6) Walk to the left of the church and exit the churchyard through the half-timbered lych gate. Turn right up New Street, passing the Falcon Inn, the end of Victoria Square, and the Painswick Pharmacy. At a crossroads, turn left up Gloucester Street.
(7) Keep right at the top, at the junction with Butt Green, and then turn left by a phone-box opposite the old pound. Pass an old milestone and the Gyde Almshouses gazebo, with another Gill inscription. Beyond Gyde Road and Hillfoot Cottage, turn right into Golf Course Road.
(8) Turn left through a parking area, then rejoin the road briefly before turning left, following the Cotswold Way. By some gateposts in the wall, turn right and cross part of the golf course to an unfenced lane.
Follow the path opposite, along the rear wall of the cemetery, before crossing another fairway and entering woodland. You emerge by a quarry, which you walk past to reach the road below Painswick Beacon.
(9) Take a path sharp right with a Wysis Way signpost and walk down through the trees to the main road (A46). Ignoring the driveway opposite, cross and turn left along the pavement past a house, before dropping right down a flight of steps.
Cross the lane and take the path opposite, bearing right to skirt a wood then left (downhill) before you reach a house ahead of you.
Ford a small stream that issues from the bottom of the wood, then bear right to a gate into the trees opposite. Follow the fenced path within the wood for a few yards, then turn right over a stile. Emerging into fields, take a permitted path that leads down the slope to a footbridge.
Beyond the stream turn left through a series of fields to pass handsome Damsell’s Farm and join the drive beyond.
(10) At Damsell’s Mill, turn left and follow the sunken road up the hill. Ignore a footpath on the left at the top. Opposite the entrance to Painswick Lodge, turn left up a narrow lane with a grassy centre. At a T-junction, take a permitted path opposite, over a stile, and walk up the field edge.
Beyond the property on the right, turn right through a series of gates to pass an outbuilding and join a hedged path beyond.
(11) Follow this path to reach woodland, where you turn right to a gate. The narrow path beyond winds along the woodland edge until it meets a larger path joining from the left. Ignore a path off to the right, emerging eventually at the bottom of the grassy slopes of Sheepscombe Common.
Turn right into the trees on a track that descends to a gate. Beyond the gate, continue downhill to meet a metalled lane; walk on down the lane to emerge opposite the Old Vicarage, just above The Butchers Arms. (S/E)
