Walk: 10:30am to 2pm - 5.1 miles and 1451ft of ascent
Our 5 day soiree into deepest Worcestershire was triggered by Rotherham Titans first pre-season friendly away at Worcester Warriors. We'd travelled down last summer to Worcester for the day and enjoyed the area, so this year decided initially to stay overnight, but then "why not stay all week?" After scouring the internet we came found a lovely place to stay - Little Davenham in Great Malvern.
We travelled down on Monday and detoured to spend a couple of hours in Tenbury Wells, I'd seen the Pump Room and Round Market when perusing websites about the area, so fancied a visit. If I'm being honest though they were a little disappointing as the Pump Room isn't a visit attraction as such, now used as a local council office but still worth seeing the building. The Round Market was shut, and much smaller than I had envisaged. But, always good to visit somewhere you've never been before.
On Monday our plan was to go for a walk on the Malvern Hills, but after driving around a little looking for somewhere to puchase a map, we ended up parking in the Waitrose car-park and then walking to the tourist office to see what maps they had on offer. I was looking for another map after making the mistake of buying an OS Landranger map of the area. And we found a little gem of a map made by Yellow Publications, it was an area of the OS Explorer map just covering the Malverns and a few miles either side, and was also water resistant. A great little map to carry in your pocket.
Anyway, by the time we'd got back to the car and headed up the road to the car-park it had started to throw it down, so after looking into each others eyes with that 'sad eye' look, we decided to save the walk for Tuesday so headed back to base. And if I'm being honest, we both went for a siesta and I stayed asleep for well over 3hrs. Obviously the meteor shower gazing of the previous night had taken it out of me.
So at last to our walk. We headed towards the Beacon car-park and arrived there just before 10:30am. Yet again just as we arrived it started to rain, but this time we just waited for 10 or 15 minutes until it stopped and then 'set sail' for the hills. The Malverns are 9 miles long so clearly we had no plans to take in all of them, our trip today would take in the northern end of the range with the Worcestershire Beacon being the highest point of the range and part of our walk.
We headed along the main path over Summer Hill and then on the steepish incline up to the top of the Worcestershire Beacon, a height of 1,394ft. Even though it was a cloudy and dull day the views were great, we could only imagine how good they must be on a sunny clear day. We were quite surprised when we reached the peak to see a lady doing yoga next to the trig point with a guy taking photos of her; not something you see on the hills everyday!
The path then headed downhill to a meeting point of the number of paths - these hills are covered in paths so you can't really get lost, we chose the Lady De Malden Drive path that would take us around the edge of North Hill with lovely views over the town of Great Malvern. After skirting the edge of the quarries we took a path back over Tablet Hill and down to the top of Green Valley where we stopped for lunch. It had been drizzling with rain on and off but as we sat down for lunch it really started to come down, so jackets out and I dined with mine over my head. It certainly wasn't cold so I really didn't want to put it on, but in the end I had to relent for a short while to keep myself, well sort of dry.
We then headed down the valley to pay a visit to St Ann's Well, now a cafe but with water replenishing history going back many hundreds of years. After a cuppa each and a slice of cake we continued on our way.
Instead of heading back up the valley we headed along the edge of the hills saving the ascent to the end of our walk. Much of this section was tree covered so there was some respite from the rain, and the extra cover provided a welcomed drop in temperature. That said, as we came towards the end of the walk we were faced with an uphill climb of around 400ft, and a steep one at that. This last section was a hard end to the walk, and it showed just how much less fit we had become over the last 6 or 8 months. It was torturous, and the sight of the car brought such a feeling of elation it was like finding out that you'd won the lottery.
So, we had been hoping for better weather to take in the views of Worcestershire and Herefordshire but the part of the hills that we experienced almost made up for it. Not the ruggedness you get from the likes of Snowdonia or the Lake District, but a whole gentle charm of it's own. That said, you can make it a testing walk with plenty of steep inclines if you find the out. A great few hours walk.
Our 5 day soiree into deepest Worcestershire was triggered by Rotherham Titans first pre-season friendly away at Worcester Warriors. We'd travelled down last summer to Worcester for the day and enjoyed the area, so this year decided initially to stay overnight, but then "why not stay all week?" After scouring the internet we came found a lovely place to stay - Little Davenham in Great Malvern.
We travelled down on Monday and detoured to spend a couple of hours in Tenbury Wells, I'd seen the Pump Room and Round Market when perusing websites about the area, so fancied a visit. If I'm being honest though they were a little disappointing as the Pump Room isn't a visit attraction as such, now used as a local council office but still worth seeing the building. The Round Market was shut, and much smaller than I had envisaged. But, always good to visit somewhere you've never been before.
On Monday our plan was to go for a walk on the Malvern Hills, but after driving around a little looking for somewhere to puchase a map, we ended up parking in the Waitrose car-park and then walking to the tourist office to see what maps they had on offer. I was looking for another map after making the mistake of buying an OS Landranger map of the area. And we found a little gem of a map made by Yellow Publications, it was an area of the OS Explorer map just covering the Malverns and a few miles either side, and was also water resistant. A great little map to carry in your pocket.
Anyway, by the time we'd got back to the car and headed up the road to the car-park it had started to throw it down, so after looking into each others eyes with that 'sad eye' look, we decided to save the walk for Tuesday so headed back to base. And if I'm being honest, we both went for a siesta and I stayed asleep for well over 3hrs. Obviously the meteor shower gazing of the previous night had taken it out of me.
So at last to our walk. We headed towards the Beacon car-park and arrived there just before 10:30am. Yet again just as we arrived it started to rain, but this time we just waited for 10 or 15 minutes until it stopped and then 'set sail' for the hills. The Malverns are 9 miles long so clearly we had no plans to take in all of them, our trip today would take in the northern end of the range with the Worcestershire Beacon being the highest point of the range and part of our walk.
We then headed down the valley to pay a visit to St Ann's Well, now a cafe but with water replenishing history going back many hundreds of years. After a cuppa each and a slice of cake we continued on our way.
So, we had been hoping for better weather to take in the views of Worcestershire and Herefordshire but the part of the hills that we experienced almost made up for it. Not the ruggedness you get from the likes of Snowdonia or the Lake District, but a whole gentle charm of it's own. That said, you can make it a testing walk with plenty of steep inclines if you find the out. A great few hours walk.
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