Five like-minded people started in 2008 from the Cardingmill Valley in Shropshire and by walking three days a year finished at Start Bay on the South Devon Coast in May 2019.
In the Second Year we Reached the Malvern Hills, Walked along the Ridge then Headed East to the River Severn
28-May-2009
Day 4: Across Farmland towards the North End of the Malverns Hills
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| Worcestershire |
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| Brian, David, Alison, Francis and Mike ready for part two |
We set off over the rich Worcestershire farmland, past oast houses....
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| Oast Houses |
....across fields of broad beans...
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| Brian among the beans |
...and asparagus, the pickers riding up and down the rows lying in small carts,....
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| Asparagus field, Walsgrove Farm |
...before embarking on the long, gentle and well-shaded climb up Woodbury Hill...
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| Up Woodbury Hill |
...from where we had our first view of the Malvern Hills, our target for the next day.
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| The Malverns in the distance |
In Shropshire many footpaths were unsigned, unmaintained and, too often, unwalked. The same was not true of Worcestershire, where in some places farmers made it abundantly clear where they wanted us to walk.
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| The path across Rodge Hill Farm |
We moved from arable land into rough pasture and woodland as we descended towards the River Teme. The Teme rises over the Welsh border in Radnorshire and flows for 130 Km through Knighton, Ludlow and Tenbury Wells before joining the Severn a little south of Worcester. Despite its variable water level, the river is clean and healthy enough for salmon to migrate upstream and spawn in its upper reaches. Here, between Tenbury and Worcester, the Teme turns south, running for a short while parallel to our route.
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| Down to the River Teme |
For several kilometres we followed the river, sometimes in the valley and sometimes on the slopes of the flanking hills. We stopped for an early pint of refreshment at The Admiral Rodney in Berrow Green. The pub is named after the commander of the British fleet at the battle of Cape St Vincent - as, apparently, are all the little dipsticks and plonkers subsequently named 'Rodney'(whether they know it or not). Fortified we rounded Berrow Hill.
A Brief Digression: The Battles of Cape St Vincent
A carved memorial near Stone Library (that is the town of Stone in Staffordshire, not a place where you can borrow stones) to local lad Admiral Sir John Jervis, the victor of the Battle of Cape St Vincent, suggests either the battle had two victors or there were more than one battle. In fact nine naval encounters between 1337 and 1833 are known as the Battle of Cape St Vincent. The biggest was in 1797 when Sir John Jervis, with 22 ships, defeated a much large Spanish fleet during the French Revolutionary War. Sir George Rodney defeated an outnumbered Spanish Squadron in the 1780 Battle of Cape St Vincent, apparently an engagement in the American Revolutionary War, though the only participants were Britain and Spain.
Cape St Vincent is generally regarded as the extreme south west corner of both Portugal and Europe, making it a useful reference point for any naval action in a vast area of sea. We have visited the cape several times, and it appears in a 2013 blogpost Algarve: The West Coast.
End of digression.
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| Around Berrow Hill |
By now the Malvern Hills looked much closer....
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| The Malvern Hills |
A little further south the Teme resumes its westward course, so we crossed it at Knightwick, stopping briefly for a late pint of refreshment in the riverside garden of the Talbot Inn.
From here, paths over pastures populated mainly by sheep brought us to the village of Alfrick...
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| Approaching Alfrick |
...and took us on to a bridge on a minor road where Lynne and Hilary were waiting to whisk us to Wyche Keep Country House B & B. The house perches on the side of the Malvern Hills giving our rooms fabulous views across the Severn Valley and the next stage of our route.
29-May-2009
Day 5: Into the Malvern Hills and Over the worcestershire Beacon
Lynne and Hilary returned us to the rather non-descript point where the previous day's walk had ended.
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| Lynne & Hilary discuss what to do with their day. |
We continued our approach to the Malverns. This being Worcestershire it was inevitable that we would pass through orchards....
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| Worcestershire Orchards |
...and hardly surprising when we came across fine old buildings undergoing restoration. Had this building, we wondered, been moved here from another site?
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| Restoration near Norris Wood |
By 11 0'clock we were quite close to the first hill of the Malvern ridge, a smallish tump rather unimaginatively called End Hill.
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| End Hill |
The Malverns are the product of a fold along a line between two terranes. The hard igneous and metamorphic rocks here forced to the surface are pre-Cambrian in origin and, at some 680 million years old, among the oldest in Britain. The rock is non-porous but has many narrow fissures, resulting in a line of springs around the base of the hills. This naturally purified water has been appreciated since the middle ages, when clean water was a rarity. The first record of bottled Malvern Water dates from 1622 and large scale commercial exploitation started in 1850 when Schweppes built what may have been the world's first bottling plant at the Holywell in Malvern Wells. I remember in my teens - and I was a teenager long before the current fashion for bottled waters - the mark of a pretentious pub or club was a bottle of Malvern water standing on the bar for mixing with whisky.
There are 70 sources around the hills. We passed the Beauchamp Fountain as we rounded End Hill.
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| Malvern Water - The Beauchamp Fountain |
Having not bothered with End Hill, we had to climb the next one....
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| Ascending Table Hill |
..which gave us a fine view over Malvern and the haze in the Severn Valley.
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| Malvern and the Severn Valley from Table Hill |
Having toiled up to the 373 m summit we immediately descended to the village of West Malvern for refreshment. It was a warm day, and with the prospect of climbing the Worcestershire Beacon to the Malvern's highest point straight after lunch, real ale man Francis chose to forsake his usual beverage in favour of a doubtful concoction whose advertisers would like you to think of as The Real Thing. I don't think it could have done him any good. Warning: the photograph below is not suitable viewing for beer drinkers of a nervous disposition.
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| Francis and 'The Real Thing' |
Regardless of our chosen refreshmnet, the drag up to the 425m summit of the Worcestershire Beacon, was slow but steady.
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| Atop the Worcestershire Beacon |
We stayed on the summit ridge until we reached the Wyche cutting, from where it was a short walk to our B & B.
30-May-2009
Day 6: Continuing along the Ridge and Over the HerefordshireBeacon, then Descending into the Severn Valley
We set off from Wyche Keep in glorious morning sunshine...
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| Preparing to leave Wyche Keep |
...and returned to the Wyche cutting. This pass through the hills was once part of the salt route from Droitwich to South Wales and a hoard of metal money bars found in the 19th century suggests it was in use as early as 250 BC.
We used the path from the cutting to climb back onto the ridge. It was distinctly breezy along the top and we stopped to watch the para-gliders. Their colleagues on the ground said the wind strength meant they were safe on the windward side of the hill, though they could not cope with the turbulence on the other side, and if the wind got any stronger they would have to pack up and go home.
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| Along the Malvern ridge watching the para-gliders. For other versions of this view see Croome Court and the paintings of Antony Bridge |
We descended towards the A449, the main pass through the the hills before climbing up and over the Herefordshire Beacon. The summit is covered in earthworks, some from 'British Camp', an iron age hill fort, and others from a later medieval castle. British Camp, like Caer Caradoc, has been touted as the site of Caractacus' last stand. The story comes from Tacitus, whose description places the battle far closer to the River Severn than either contender we encountered, but as he wrote fifty years after the event and never visited Britain, his accuracy may be questionable. It almost certainly happened somewhere, and the location of that somewhere is, and will probably remain, unknown.
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| British Camp on the Herefordshire Beacon |
As the ridge began to peter out we turned east and descended into the broad, flat Severn valley
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| Across the Severn Valley |
Despite being in more heavily populated farmland, our route provided no suitable pub for lunch. We arrived in Upton on Severn early enough to enjoy a cup of tea and a cake - a process which Mike always seems to find unreasonably pleasing - and a have a stroll through the market. Lynne bought two of the largest cauliflowers I have ever seen.
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| Walk over - posing by the Severn at Upton |
And that was it for 2009, now for 2010
Introduction
Day 1 to 3 (2008) Cardingmill Valley to Great Whitley
Day 4 to 6 (2009) Great Whitely to Upton-on-Severn via the Malvern Ridge
Day 7 to 9 (2010) Upton-on-Severn to Andoversford
Day 10 (2011) Andoversford to Perrott's Brook
Day 11 (2011) Perrott's Brook to the Round Elm Crossroads
Day 12 (2011) Walking Round Stroud
Day 13 (2012) Stroud to North Nibley
Day 14 (2012) North Nibley to Old Sodbury
Day 15 (2012) Old Sodbury to Swineford
Day 16 (2013) Along the Chew Valley
Day 17 (2013) Over the Mendips to Wells
Day 18 (2013) Wells to Glastonbury 'The Mountain Route'
Day 19 (2014) Glastonbury to Langport
Day 20 (2014) Along the Parrett and over the Tone
Day 21 (2014) Into the Quantocks
Day 22 (2015) From the Quantocks to the Sea
Day 23 (2015) Watchet, Dunster and Dunkery Hill
Day 24 (2015) Dunkery Beacon to Withypool
Day 25 (2016) Entering Devon and Leaving Exmoor
Day 26 (2016) Knowstone to Black Dog on the Two Moors Way
Day 27 (2016) Morchard Bishop to Copplestone
Day 28 (2017) Down St Mary to Drewsteignton
Day 29 (2017) Drewsteignton to Bennett's Cross
Day 30 (2017) Bennett's Cross to Lustleigh
Day 31 (2018) Southwest Across the Moor from Lustleigh
Day 32 (2018) South to Ugborough
Day 33 (2018) Ugborough to Ringmore
Day 34 (2019) Around the Avon Estuary to Hope Cove
Day 35 (2019): Hope Cove to Prawle Point
Day 36 (2019) Prawle Point to Start Bay: The End
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The Last Post
That's All Folks - The Odyssey is done.
Just revisiting 2009 and Worcestershire, as Francis and I are doing the Worcestershire Way on odd days. The route from Great Witley to Knightwick partly coincides, but the Worcestershire Way is nicer, as we avoided that scar of a footpath through the fields, taking instead another delightful wooded path with bluebells.
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