Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
worth exploring. Friday Street indicates the siting of the Friday market, while Bisley
Street, the original main street when Painswick was merely a village named Wicke,
has a collection of splendid old buildings, among the oldest in the town. At the top of
Hale Lane the old town stocks remain.
The white stone of Painswick is one of the town's main features
Clipped yew hedges and table tombs in Painswick churchyard
In common with several other Cotswold towns, Painswick owes its elegance to the
cloth trade, at the height of which 25 mills were being powered by local streams. In
the Civil War Royalists attacked the town, damaging St Mary's Church with fire and
cannonballs, marks of which are evident to this day. The churchyard is noted for its
clipped yew trees, its Renaissancestyle table tombs and the lych gate, whose timbers,
decorated with carvings of bells and music, came from the belfry roof after the spire
collapsed in 1883. (At 174ft (53m) high, the elegant spire can be seen from a great
distance, while the church it advertises is a true gem.) Each September a clipping ce-
