Broadway Tower

Above Broadway

A folly built for a view

Broadway Tower stands on the second-highest point of the whole Cotswold ridge, just over a thousand feet up on Broadway Hill, and it looks exactly like a little castle that has strayed onto the top of a green English hill. It is a hexagonal Gothic folly with three round turrets, battlements and gargoyles, designed by the fashionable architect James Wyatt and finished in 1798. The story of why it is here is a good one: the Earl of Coventry had it built so that it would just be visible from his house at Croome, some fifteen miles away, reputedly to settle whether a beacon on this hill could be seen from home. The answer, happily, was yes, and the folly has been catching the eye ever since.

The reason to come is the view. Climb the tight stone stair to the roof and, on a clear day, the panorama is said to take in as many as sixteen counties, from the Welsh mountains in the far west across the whole patchwork of the Vale of Evesham to the hills of Buckinghamshire in the east. Even on a middling day it is one of the great Cotswold outlooks, the wolds falling away beneath you in every direction. Inside, the tower's rooms now hold small exhibitions telling its history, including its most romantic chapter: for a time it was rented as a rural retreat by friends of William Morris, and Morris himself stayed here among the winds. His visits to this draughty hilltop tower helped stir the campaign that became the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, so a corner of the modern conservation movement began right here.

What's up there

• The rooftop viewThe whole point of the place: a battlemented viewing platform with, on a clear day, a sixteen-county panorama across the wolds.
• The William Morris roomsSmall exhibitions inside the tower telling its story, from the Earl of Coventry to its days as a Pre-Raphaelite bolt-hole.
• The nuclear bunkerIn the field beside the tower, a restored Cold War Royal Observer Corps monitoring post, one of the best preserved in the country, open to look round.
• The red deer & the cafeA herd of red deer grazes the surrounding country park, and the Morris & Brown cafe does a good lunch with the view thrown in.

Getting up there

There are two ways to arrive, and both are good. You can drive straight up to the country park and its car park, which is easiest with children or on a short visit; there is an admission charge for the tower and bunker, so it is worth checking current prices and opening times on their own site before you go. Or, much the nicer way on a fine day, you can walk up from Broadway village along the Cotswold Way, climbing through the parkland and the deer field to the ridge, an hour or so of steady uphill that earns you the view all the more. Either way, pick a bright, clear day: the whole magic of the place is in how far you can see.

Making a day of it

The tower pairs naturally with the village below it. Broadway itself, the “Jewel of the Cotswolds”, has one of the loveliest high streets in England for a wander and a lunch, and Snowshill Manor is a short drive on. A little further afield, Batsford Arboretum and the Cotswold Falconry Centre make an easy pairing, and Chastleton House is not far the other way. Our full guide to things to do gathers the rest.

“We walk up from the village on a clear morning, climb to the roof, and just stand there. Sixteen counties, they say, and it certainly feels like it. Then a slow lunch at the cafe before the walk back down.”

Visit the official site →

Also nearby

• Broadway · Village · below the tower
• Batsford Arboretum · Arboretum · Moreton-in-Marsh
• Cotswold Falconry Centre · Attraction · Batsford
• Chastleton House · House · nr Moreton