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Lower Slaughter, Gloucestershire

The Old Mill at Lower Slaughter

Lower Slaughter is a beautiful village in the Cotswolds, on the river Eye. Named after a Norman nobleman, or after a word meaning muddy place in old English, the village is centred on an old water mill and a former manor house. The manor house was a nunnery, until Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in 1553. In 1611 the manor was granted to Sir George Whitmore, and remained in his family until 1964. In this sense Lower Slaughter could be looked upon as an estate village, a village given a pleasing uniformity of appearance by the long domination of a single family. Today Lower Slaughter typifies the image of a beautiful English village. English villages tend to use visual tricks to give a sense of closing off the outside world. Use will typically be made of a bend in the road, or a natural bowl in the landscape. Lower Slaughter uses a bend in the road, and crucially to its beauty, a bend in the river Eye. The river gives the village a focus and a definition. It seems to begin at the first bend where it runs under the low road bridge, and ends beyond the river fork at the site of the Old Mill Museum. Between these two points you get the gentle, enclosed bend of the village on both sides of the stream.

 

There is a tea shop and gift shop at the Old Mill Museum, and a display of items relating to the mill.

 

Lower Slaughter Manor is now a highly rated four star hotel. Click here for more information, guest reviews, room availability and bookings.

Address: Lower Slaughter, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL54 2HX

Click here for an interactive map centred on Lower Slaughter.

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