The Slaughters

About the Slaughters

The Cotswolds with the volume turned down

First, the name, because everyone asks. It has nothing to do with anything grisly. Slaughter comes from the Old English slohtre, meaning a wet place or muddy stream, which is exactly what you find: the little River Eye slipping clear and shallow through the heart of both villages. Upper and Lower Slaughter sit a mile apart on that same stream, west into Gloucestershire and only a short hop from Bourton-on-the-Water, and between them they add up to about the most unspoilt corner of the whole Cotswolds. There are no shops to speak of, no amusements, no model village. What there is instead is honey-coloured stone, water, and a stillness that the busier honeypots lost long ago.

Lower Slaughter is the one most people picture: a row of seventeenth-century cottages leaning towards the water, low stone footbridges, and at the western end an old corn mill of warm red brick with a working waterwheel and a tall chimney, now a little museum with a café and craft shop. Upper Slaughter, a mile upstream, is quieter still, a huddle of Georgian and older cottages around a ford and a church, several of them gently restored by the architect Edwin Lutyens in 1906. Neither village asks much of you beyond a slow walk and an eye for detail, and that is precisely the point. We send guests here when they want the Cotswolds of the imagination without the coach parties.

What we send guests to see

The pleasure here is in the wandering rather than the ticking-off, but a few things are worth seeking out.

• The Old Mill, Lower SlaughterThe red-brick corn mill with its undershot wheel and chimney, working into the twentieth century and now a small museum with a good café and an ice-cream counter beside the river.
• The River Eye & footbridgesThe shallow stream that threads through Lower Slaughter, crossed by low stone bridges and lined with cottages. It is the classic Cotswold photograph, and unusually it lives up to itself.
• The walk between the twoA flat, easy mile of footpath links Lower to Upper Slaughter along the riverbank, through meadows and past the mill. It is the best way to see both, and takes the cars out of the picture entirely.
• Upper Slaughter's war memorialUpper Slaughter is one of only a handful of “Doubly Thankful” villages in England: every one of its servicemen and women came home from both world wars. There is no roll of the fallen on the memorial, only quiet thanks, and it is oddly moving to stand before.

The honest bit about crowds

Lower Slaughter is no secret, and on a fine summer weekend the lane by the river fills up and the few parking spaces go early. But it is a gentler kind of busy than nearby Bibury or Bourton: there are no attractions pulling coaches in, so the crowds are day-trippers on foot who thin out quickly once you walk the footpath towards Upper Slaughter. Our advice is the usual one. Come early or come out of season, park considerately, and give yourself time to walk between the two villages rather than just photographing the first bridge and leaving. Do that and you will have the better half of the Slaughters almost to yourself.

Making a day of it

The Slaughters lie about half an hour from Well Cottage, west into Gloucestershire. Because the two villages together make a walk of an hour or two rather than a full day, they pair naturally with Bourton-on-the-Water, barely a mile on, where the little bridges and tea rooms and a scattering of family attractions make an easy afternoon. Stow-on-the-Wold, with its antique shops and market square, is a few minutes the other way and good for lunch. In the villages themselves, The Slaughters Manor House and The Slaughters Country Inn both do smart lunches by the water. For the wider spread of ideas within an easy drive, our things to do guide gathers the gardens, market towns and attractions we point guests to most.

Also nearby

• Bourton-on-the-Water · Village · 1 mile on
• Stow-on-the-Wold · Market town · Cotswolds
• Bibury · Village · Cotswolds