Community Assembly of Painswick

The Community Assembly of Painswick is located in a town and civil parish in the Stroud District in Gloucestershire in the south west of the British Isles. 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, and 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 between Stroud to the south and the city of Gloucester to the north.

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 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 or ' dairy-farm'. It continues to appear by this name into the 13th century. The form Painswik first appears in 1237, originating in the name of an earlier lord of the manor, Pain Fitzjohn (1137). Pain was a common Anglo-Norman name (itself originating in paiën , Latin paganus or ' heathen '.

Today, Painswick hosts a September ' Clypping ' ceremony where parishioners hold hands to encircle the church. It also hosts the annual Art Couture Painswick Festival. The village won the title 'Gloucestershire Village of the Year' in 2025.