A Jacobean produce hall of 1627 on the High Street, open-sided with worn cobbles and a timber roof - the traditional start of the Cotswold Way and a free National Trust landmark in the heart of Campden.
Chipping Campden Market Hall stands on an island in the High Street, an open-sided Jacobean building of honey-coloured limestone given to the town in 1627 by Sir Baptist Hicks. It was a produce or butter market, not a wool hall: farmers and cottagers sold cheese, eggs, butter, and poultry under cover. The cobbled floor is thought to be original, worn by centuries of trading, and the steep gabled roof is carried on a timber frame of rafters and arched trusses that you can still walk beneath today.
In the 1940s the hall came close to being sold, dismantled, and shipped to the United States. Local people, through the Campden Trust, raised the money to buy it first and later passed it to the National Trust, which cares for the building now. It remains free to visit at any time: sit on the worn steps, look out through the stone arches to the High Street, and you are in the natural meeting point of the town.
A marker stone near the hall marks the official start (and finish) of the Cotswold Way. Most walkers photograph the arches, check their kit, and then climb toward Dover's Hill on Stage 1. There is no ticket and no set opening hour - the hall is part of the street. Practical notes are on the National Trust Market Hall page.
