Walkers arriving in Weston after 101 miles might expect a gentle downhill stroll to the finish at Bath Abbey. They would be wrong. The final stretch of the Cotswold Way is one of its most cunningly designed sections — and one of its hilliest.
Weston was once a separate village, recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 with two manors and 41 households. One manor belonged to Bath Abbey, the other to Arnulf de Hesding. For centuries it was a quiet agricultural parish, its economy based on sheep grazing the slopes of Lansdown. The 15th-century tower of All Saints Church survives from this era, though the rest of the building was rebuilt in 1830-32 by the architect John Pinch the Younger to serve a growing population as Bath expanded northward.
The trail drops into Weston's high street — where a bakery and cafe offer the last refreshment stop — then immediately climbs again. 'The beast of Primrose Hill,' as walkers have christened it, is a steep, twisting ascent through suburban streets and across parkland that catches tired legs by surprise.
“The trail drops into Weston's high street — where a bakery and cafe offer the last refreshment stop — then immediately climbs again.”
But the reward is magnificent. From the top of Primrose Hill, the route follows High Common — a stretch of open ground that feels nothing like a city — before descending Sion Hill through avenues of beech trees into Royal Victoria Park, which a young Princess Victoria officially opened in 1830, seven years before she became queen.
Then, suddenly, the Georgian splendour of Bath unfolds. The Royal Crescent appears — thirty terraced houses arranged in a 150-metre arc, designed by John Wood the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774. The Circus follows, then the descent through the old city to Bath Abbey, where a carved stone disc set into the pavement marks the end of the Cotswold Way, a twin to its partner 102 miles away in Chipping Campden.
