Painswick

Painswick is a town and civil parish in the Stroud District in Gloucestershire, England. Originally the town grew from the wool trade, but it is now best known for its parish church's yew trees and the local Painswick Rococo Garden. The village is mainly constructed of locally quarried Cotswold stone. Many of the buildings feature south-facing attic rooms once used as weavers' workshops.

Painswick stands on a hill overlooking one of the Five Valleys, on the B4073 route between Stroud, 4 miles (6.5 km) to the south, and the city of Gloucester, 7.5 miles (12 km) to the north. It has narrow streets and traditional architecture.

It has a cricket and rugby team and there is a golf course on the outskirts of the town. Painswick Beacon is in the nearby hills.

Painswick won the title "Gloucestershire Village of the Year" in 2025.

There is evidence of settlement in the area as long ago as the Iron Age. This can be seen in Kimsbury hill fort, a defensive earthwork on nearby Painswick Beacon, which has wide views across the Severn Vale. A Roman villa was built just to the north of the present village, dated by Welbore St Clair Baddeley to the late second century. The local monastery, Prinknash Abbey, was established in the 11th century. Painswick itself first appears in historical records in the Domesday Book of 1086, as Wiche, 'dairy-farm'. It continues to appear by this name into the 13th century. The form Painswik first appears in 1237, but must originate in the name of an earlier lord of the manor, Pain Fitzjohn (d. 1137). Pain was a common Anglo-Norman name (itself originating in paiën, Latin paganus, 'heathen').

During the first English Civil War (1642–45) Gloucester was a Parliamentarian stronghold of some strategic importance, but it was surrounded by forces loyal to King Charles I. After the siege of Gloucester was broken on 5 September 1643, the Royalist army, which had been surrounding the city, encamped overnight at Painswick, with the king staying at Court House. Some damage was caused by the troops and a scar from two small cannonballs can still be seen on the tower of St. Mary's parish church.

Painswick House dates from the 1730s and is the home of Baron Dickinson. Its Rococo Garden was laid out in the 1740s by Benjamin Hyett.

Gyde House, a prominent Edwardian Cotswold stone building overlooking the town, was formerly a children's home called "Gyde Orphanage" or "Gyde Home".^{[citation needed]} The building started in 1913 with money bequeathed by a local man, Edwin Francis Gyde (1812 - 1894). The orphanage was designed by Percy Richard Morley Horder, and opened in 1919 to accommodate up to 70 children from ages 5 to 12. The home ran into financial difficulties in the 1930s and was taken over by the National Children's Home charity (NCH). In 1987, Gyde House was offered for free to Coral Atkins, an English actress, for supporting children who had experienced severe abuse. The home closed in 1997 and was subsequently converted into apartments.