Textile Tales Tetbury: A Walk Back in Time

The Curious Cloth curates and leads micro-adventures for textile adventurists. Thoughtful guided walks designed as a space to pause, reconnect, and restore. Each experience explores the quiet magic found between textile past, present, and future, revealing how cloth has shaped landscape, architecture, and community across the South Cotswolds.

Our walk portfolio focuses on notable towns at the heart of the region’s rich textile legacy. Walks can be enjoyed individually or combined to reveal the interconnected nature of an industry that once made this area globally renowned. Every town played a distinct and essential role, and the traces remain woven into streets, buildings, valleys and communities today.

Wotton-under-Edge — our home town, reflects a heritage of weaving and textile finishing, still visible in its architecture, and valley setting.

Tetbury - served as the industry’s operational and transportation hub, where trade routes and market spaces shaped its striking architecture and well-worn streets.

Painswick - ideally positioned on key trading routes, became associated with finer materials, and its wealth is evident today in its rich Cotswold architecture.

Nailsworth - known as the water wheel town, the industry focused to weaving and textile finishing was possible through its location on key fast flowing waterways. Its legacy evident today in rich mill architecture.

Each walk begins over a cuppa, introducing the town’s story and the characters who shaped it. From there, we follow the trodden paths, hills, valleys, and waterways that powered its industry and defined its character.

These gentle, engaging experiences uncover overlooked stories and reconnect fragments of history through walking and conversation. As you explore hidden corners and familiar streets alike, you’ll discover how textile heritage continues to influence the creative spirit of the region today.

More than a guided walk, this is an invitation to slow down, notice details, and appreciate the threads that connect material to place, and people: a relaxed and enriching journey stitched with history, curiosity, and warmth.