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This is a top 5 favourite of ours and it's free. You can drive to within a short slight uphill walk and be rewarded by fabulous 360 degree views across the Severn Vale to the Forest of Dean and north beyond Gloucester. It's about 283m or 920ft above sea level.
The Painswick Golf Course uses the hill fort and people walk, cycle, horse ride and picnic here. near the King Charles 1st, who on seeing the beautiful valley to the east, said "This must be Paradise". We won't argue with that.
The Wysis Way, linking Offa's Dyke Path National Trail at Monmouth to the beginning of the Thames Path National Trail in Gloucestershire, meets the Cotswold Way at Painswick Beacon.
It is also called Painswick Hill, Castle Godwin and Kimsbury Hill Fort. It has a long history, being first inhabited in the Iron Age as a hill fort between 500 and 100 BC. It is an impressive sight.
