Donnington Brewery & Its Cotswold Pubs

A mile or so outside Stow-on-the-Wold, tucked beside a mill pond fed by a hillside spring, Donnington Brewery is about as chocolate-box a piece of English industry as still exists: a Cotswold-stone watermill, a working wheel, and a family that has owned and run it for exactly two hundred years. What makes Donnington genuinely worth knowing about, though, is not just the brewery itself but the twenty pubs it owns across the Cotswolds and just beyond — a proper local estate, in the old sense, ranging from unreconstructed village locals to a handful that now serve some of the best food in the region.

Seven Centuries at the Mill

The site’s history goes back further than the beer does. A mill was first recorded here in 1291, originally a cloth mill serving the Cotswold wool trade, before being rebuilt as a corn mill around 1580. Thomas Arkell bought the mill in 1827, and it was his son Richard who began brewing on the site in 1865 — a business that has stayed in Arkell family hands ever since, run for decades by Claude Arkell until his death in 2007, when it passed to his cousins Peter and James Arkell of the separate, larger Arkell’s Brewery in Swindon. James Arkell remains the owner today.

The brewery building itself, Grade II listed and built largely in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, still draws on the original overshot waterwheel, powered by the River Dikler, to help drive its pumps and machinery — and the spring beside the mill pond is credited with giving Donnington’s beers their distinctive character. The core range today is built around two cask ales, SBA and BB, brewed in small volumes and distributed almost entirely to the brewery’s own pubs rather than sold widely through supermarkets — part of why Donnington beer still feels like a genuinely local discovery rather than a national brand.

Twenty Pubs, One Black-and-White Sign

Every Donnington pub carries the same distinctive black-and-white livery, a tradition introduced by Claude Arkell and continued by James — so however far apart two of them are, they are instantly recognisable as siblings. At the estate’s peak, an evening’s challenge grew up locally of visiting every Donnington pub in a single night, following a route that became known as the Donnington Way; the estate has changed shape over the years as pubs have been bought, sold or converted, but the spirit of the challenge, and the path itself, endures among serious enthusiasts. The brewery also supplies its beer to a number of independent free houses nearby, beyond its own twenty tied pubs.

Most of the twenty are proper village locals in the best sense: low beams, open fires, a warm welcome for dogs and walkers, and honest pub food built around Donnington’s own ales. A handful, though, are run rather differently — several are now pubs with rooms, and a couple have been quietly repositioned as genuine dining destinations under their own separate management, with menus that go well beyond the standard pub blackboard. The clearest example is the Fox Inn at Broadwell, overlooking the village green, which keeps its identity as a proper local — drinkers are as welcome as diners, and the beer gardens and bar are unchanged in spirit — while its kitchen turns out dishes like iberico pork bavette with asparagus and romesco, and a côte de boeuf to share, food that would not look out of place in a far more self-consciously smart dining room. The Horse & Groom at Bourton-on-the-Hill, which Donnington took on in 2024, plays a similar role at the more polished end of the estate: a Grade II listed Georgian inn with five en-suite rooms, sweeping views over the Evenlode valley, and a daily-changing menu built around local game and seasonal produce, alongside a weekday plat du jour and themed nights.

The Full List

Here is the complete current roster of Donnington pubs, so you know one when you see one:

Beyond the Pubs

The brewery itself runs tours for anyone who wants to see the waterwheel and the working mill up close, and a small on-site shop sells the beers to take away. Donnington also, rather neatly, lets a handful of its own holiday cottages directly — a reminder that the whole operation is still run as a genuine, diversified rural estate, brewery and pubs included, rather than simply a drinks brand with a heritage story attached to it.

A Pint by the Mill Pond, Honesty Box Included

One detail worth knowing before you go: beside the mill pond, Donnington keeps a small honesty-box beer point, open round the clock for anyone who fancies a pit stop between pubs. Take a bottle, leave your money, and nobody is stood there checking. It is cash only — no card machine in sight — which rather suits the whole spirit of the thing: no receipt, no tap, no record, just a box and your own conscience. Bring old-fashioned coins and notes if you want to be properly honest. It is also a genuinely pretty spot to pause: swans and peacocks wander the grounds, trout move in the pond below the wheel, and the brewery’s horses are often grazing close by. The formal tours and shop keep more conventional hours, Monday to Friday, 8am to 4pm, closed at weekends — but the honesty box itself does not appear to watch the clock.

Planning Your Visit

Donnington Brewery is at Upper Swell, just outside Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, GL54 1EP — close enough to combine easily with a day built around Stow, the Slaughters or Bourton-on-the-Water. With twenty pubs spread across the Cotswolds and into Worcestershire and Warwickshire, the sensible approach for most visitors is to pick two or three near wherever you are staying rather than attempt the full Donnington Way in one evening — though we admire anyone who tries.

Where to Stay Nearby

Several of our collections sit within easy reach of Donnington’s home ground around Stow-on-the-Wold and the surrounding villages, including the Kingham Cottages Collection and the Temple Guiting Collection. For a fuller sense of what is available nearby, our full portfolio of Cotswold properties can be filtered by location.

However you choose to base yourselves, our concierge team can help book a table at the Fox Inn or the Horse & Groom for the smarter end of the evening, or simply point you towards the nearest black-and-white sign for something more straightforward.

In Short

Donnington is that rare thing: a brewery whose pub estate has grown organically over a couple of centuries rather than been assembled by a marketing department, and it shows in the range on offer — twenty pubs that genuinely differ from one another, from the unpretentious Cotswold local to the Fox Inn’s côte de boeuf. Worth building an evening, or several, around.

If you are planning a stay nearby, enquire with our team and we will help you build a visit around the Donnington pub — or two — that suits your group best.

© Luxury Cotswold Rentals. Images © Luxury Cotswold Rentals, except where copyright remains with the original photographer or creator.