Bourton-on-the-Water is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, that lies on a wide flat vale within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

[2] Bourton-on-the-Water's high street is flanked by long wide greens and the River Windrush that runs through them.

[9] The earliest evidence of human activity within the Bourton-on-the-Water area was found in the Slaughter Bridge gravel-spread, where Neolithic pottery (dated c. 4000 B.C.)

By the 11th century a Christian church, Norman, was established and the village had developed along the River Windrush much as it is today.

[12] Following the formation of the Territorial Force in 1908, the town, for recruiting, was granted to the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars.

Today the regiment, now a squadron of The Royal Wessex Yeomanry, continues to recruit from this area.

[15] During construction of the school's maths block, it was discovered to be situated upon a Roman cemetery which also contained Iron Age roundhouses, burials, and pottery.

[16][17] The houses and shops in the village are constructed of the ashlar yellow limestone characteristic of the Cotswolds and they have the embellishments that make Cotswold architecture so picturesque: projecting gables, string-courses, windows with stone mullions, dripmoulds and stone hoodmoulds over the doors.

[9] Parts of the James Bond movie Die Another Day (2002) were filmed in the car park at Bourton-on-the-Water and on the nearby ex-RAF aircraft runway at RAF Little Rissington.

[19] Salmonsbury Camp, a nearby Iron Age habitation, is designated a UK National scheduled monument (SAM 32392).

)[21] Bourton has a number of tourist attractions:[22] Long-distance footpaths and local walks start, finish or pass through Bourton-on-the-Water.