Distance: just under 8 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

Rural walk from Colwall in Herefordshire, across a low point in the Malvern Hills, across Castlemorton Common, to the ancient and surprisingly lively River Severn side town of Upton-upon-Severn.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

For the want of a bridge the battle was lost

Today Upton-upon-Severn much like Stourport and Bewdley in the north of the county of Worcestershire, is the kind of riverside town where in lieu of the West Midlands having a coastline, people from the region’s towns and cities head to on outings at the weekends.

Much like those two larger Worcestershire River Severn side towns, prior to the 20th Century Upton was a major trading hub. This has left it’s compact centre with a series of far grander buildings than you would expect of a little out of the way river town, quite some way from any modern major transport routes. Of course prior to the 20th Century the River Severn was a major transport link, with sailing trows and barges pulled by teams of people, and even intrepid canal narrow boats, plying its waters.

This made Upton-upon-Severn an important centre in the south of Worcestershire. Indeed, one occasion control of it played a pivotal role in deciding who would rule the entire country. In 1651 it was the location of a decisive skirmish, when a small party of 18 Parliamentary soldiers who were part of the advance guard of the New Model Army snuck across the town’s damaged bridge at night, and set up a distraction by storming the church. This enabled the rest of the Parliamentary unit they were part of to cross the river whilst the town’s Royalist defenders were concentrated on attacking the interlopers in the church. With Upoton-upon-Severn back in Parliamentary hands the road to Worcester, where Charles II was defeated, and (temporarily as it happened…) barred from taking the throne, was open.

The tower of the church where this ambush took place with its distinctive cupola is still there today, although the body of the church was demolished in 1937, just a few years before the town’s distinctive modern bridge which arches over the Severn was built. Apparently it is possible to see evidence of the battle in the form of impressions created by musket shot, and soot from a fire set by the Royalists to burn out their Parliamentary assailants, in the Tower. These days it houses Upton-upon-Severn’s Tourist Information Centre.

That is what awaits you at Upon-upon-Severn, however, the entire route from Colwall on the eastern fringe of Herefordshire, over a low point in the Malvern Hills range, and across Castlemorton Common offers much to drink in. The Malverns, as well as being nearly the closest thing the West Midlands region has to a National Park all of its own, is steeped in myth and legend from holy springs, caves and hallows worshipped in ancient times, to how it has inspired all kind of fantastical art, literature and film more recently. Castlemorton Common which you cross halfway through the walk, is an unusual and important example of a large surviving piece of common land. This would be immensely interesting and worthy of note in of itself, however, the role that it played in the spring of 1992 as the site of a gigantic, week long, unauthorised free party, proved a pivotal moment in catalysing the reactionary forces that pushed through the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, which had huge implications for land access, live music and the evolution of rave and counterculture in the United Kingdom.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

To start the walk, from the southbound platform of Ledbury Railway Station head for the exit.

Out on the station’s little forecourt turn left following the direction of a footpath waymark sign.

Just after the sign, steps up to a bridge across the line become visible.

Once you have crossed the bridge head down the steps on the other side.

Then head down another set of steps on your left into a small area of woodland. In the middle of this there is a nature reserve.

At the bottom of the steps walk to a fork in the path and then turn right heading towards an opening in the trees which leads out onto a field.

Presently you reach a gate which you pass through to enter the field beyond.

Follow the clearly defined path across the field to a gap in the hedge where there is a gate.

Head through this gate as well and follow the path across the next field.

The path passes through another gap in the hedge into the next field.

At this point you take a hard turn to the left and follow the line of the hedgerow for a short distance.

From this vantage point it is possible to see the Malvern Hills rising up above you, and the tall British Camp Hill which was a major Iron Age hill fort, in the distance.

Soon you come to another, smaller gap into the hedge which leads into a large field.

Having crossed into this field you have a great view of British Camp in front of you, and if you look behind the northern part of the ridge looking towards the Worcestershire Beacon behind you.

As you follow the path, presently you come to a place where it forks.

Take the right hand fork here walking towards a cream coloured house.

Upon reaching the cream coloured house take a short, steep path to your left leading up to a lane.

Walk along the lane a short distance passing the cream coloured house.

Soon on your left there is a style and a gate.

Cross over this and then also cross the second style and gate immediately on your right.

This leads into a small clearing surrounded by thickets of bushes and trees. There is a clear path across it leading up a short sloping hill.

At the top there is a style cross over the style and you find yourself standing above a country lane.

Walk down to the lane and more or less immediately opposite you there is a footpath waymark and a sign in gothic script saying “The Hartlands”.

Cross over the road and head through this gate.

On the other side there is a path leading through a stand of scraggly trees near a brook.

Near the edge of the trees there is a footbridge. Cross over the footbridge and head through the gate just after it.

This leads onto a plank bridge immediately after the gate. Cross over this bridge as well.

From here walk in the direction of British Camp Hill and a line of trees on one side of the field at the top of the bank of the brook.

Once you reach the trees and the side of the brook, follow the line of the stream for a very short way.

Just after you get to this point there is another crossing over the stream, to your left.

Head across here – taking care – because it can be quite muddy, you enter the field on the other bank.

Having made it into the field, walk diagonally across the field.

Presently you will observe a tree which is standing quite near the centre of the field, away from the clusters of trees on either side. Aim roughly for the direction of this tree.

Presently the route you are travelling merges with another path across the field.

Follow this route until you reach another plank bridge.

After crossing the plank bridge walk towards the hedgerow on the other side of the field you are crossing.

Here you will find a style, cross over it.

Once into the field beyond, walk up the grassy slope in front of you, heading for a line of trees beyond.

At this stage you are aiming for a stand of younger trees, immediately adjacent to where a householder has cut down the trees and vegetation immediately in front of their property.

Near the top of the slope as you approach the tree line it makes sense to pause and look back across Herefordshire towards Wales from where you have climbed to.

On entering the thicket you walk up a steep, but well trodden path through the trees.

At the top of the slope you reach a style, cross over it.

On the other side turn right and follow the path up the remaining section of the slope.

At the top you come out near the bottom of Jubilee Drive, opposite the Malvern Hills Hotel and Restaurant.

Turn right and walk a few dozen paces further along and you are on the edge of the British Camp Hill car park.

On the other side of the main road which comes up from the market town of Ledbury you can see a sign saying “Welcome to Worcestershire” indicating that you have reached the county boundary.

At this point in the walk you can stop for refreshments at Sally’s Cafe, a large wooden shed with parasoled outdoor seating, to the right of where you are standing. They provide a quick and friendly service, but relatively unusually these days they have a £5.00 card payments minimum.

Having reached British Camp Hill car park, cross over the road.

Walk across the car park heading left.

At the bottom in the left hand corner from where you have come you will find a gate leading onto a track. It has a cattle grid in front of it.

Walk for some way along the road, which heads steadily downwards through woodland on the edge of the Malvern Hills.

Presently the trees clear and you find yourself beside the British Camp Reservoir, which provides drinking water.

Having passed the Reservoir the road curves steeply downhill.

At the bottom of the hill the road enters woodland once more. There is a fast flowing stream running next to the track carrying run off from the Reservoir.

After a little bit of further walking the path forks.

Leave the track here and head onto a steep, stony footpath following the line of the stream.

You stay on this path for some distance heading steadily downhill.

Presently you reach a heavily oxidised metal gate leading out onto a field on the lower slopes of the hills.

Pass through the gate and follow the outline of a path down, past some scattered trees, and across the undulating hillside.

Once at the bottom there is a gate leading out onto a lane.

Heading through the gate and out onto the lane turn right.

This leads down towards a farm. Just before you reach the farm buildings there is a gate leading out onto a field on your left, immediately adjacent to a shed or small barn.

Once into the field walk across it, heading roughly in the direction of a very windswept tree.

From this point it will be possible to see the gateway on the far side.

When you reach this gateway pass through it and continue across the field on the other side.

This field slopes steadily downhill, until you cross the line of another field.

After this point the walk is generally across pretty flat terrain. Once into the field head for the line of the hedgerow and follow it round.

Presently you reach the far side where there is a gate leading out onto a lane.

Having stepped out onto the lane, turn right.

Follow this lane for several hundred metres. It was pretty quiet when I walked the route and I did not see a single car.

After walking for a while you come to a gate across the road.

I did wonder upon reaching the gate whether it had been installed in response to the free party in late May 1992. As if the experience of having the followers of the Spiral Tribe Sound System, and assorted other new age travellers and revolutionary crusties spending a week partying on their land, had incised the Commoners of Castlemorton to demarcate and seek to defend their land. But that is just speculation – besides the land is a special and specially protected natural habitat for all manner of animals and plant life.

On the other side of the gate keep walking along the road as it passes near the edge of the Common. Here and there there are houses which front onto the Common, and which presumably have grazing and other rights to make use of it.

Presently you come to several turnings off the road and cross over a stream. Keep on the road you have been walking along, heading straight ahead at this point.

Rounding a bend in the road a car park is visible in the distance near the centre of the Common.

Follow the road towards the car park.

Once you reach the car park you are near where you head off onto a footpath. Turn left and follow the road past the car park, heading over a bridge across a stream.

Disregard the first pathway that leads off the road on your left, which heads in the direction of the village of Welland which sits to the north east of the Common.

Instead take the next pathway off to the left, which runs up diagonally towards the B4208 as it crosses the Common.

Having reached the side of this main road, cross over.

Then continue along the footpath on the other side heading for the edge of the Common.

It is worth looking back at points for excellent, and quite majestic, even on the clear but overcast January day I undertook the walk, across the Common to the line of the Malvern Hills beyond.

Presently you turn right onto another paved road heading towards the edge of the Common, beyond the village of Welland.

Presently this road approaches a cluster of houses right on the very edge of the Common.

Walk between this group of buildings and down a track lined by thickets beyond them.

At this point, having left the open, unenclosed expanse of Castlemorton Common behind you, you come once more to a style.

Cross the style into the field beyond.

Then head across the field in the direction of another style, next to some windswept trees on the other side.

Having crossed walk across the field you have entered in the direction of a gateway into the adjacent field.

Once you reach the gate however, instead of crossing into the next field, take a sharp right turn and follow the hedgerow to the bottom of the field.

At the bottom of the field you come to a style next to a metal gate leading out onto a lane.

Follow it a short way towards another larger lane, which is paved.

Having crossed into the lane head across the style on the other side into the field beyond.

Cross this field, heading in the direction of a distant style at the bottom of it. When I walked the route this field had two gigantic black shire horses in it.

Having crossed the next style, you will see a sewage works beyond the hedgerow at the bottom of the field you have just entered.

Turning left you walk diagonally towards the centre of the field – heading away from the sewage works – and then near the centre of the field, turn left again heading for a gate. The path is fairly clearly visible all of the way across.

Once you have crossed the field and passed over a style, you are on an unpaved lane.

Turn left and follow this lane for some distance past a couple of houses.

Presently you enter a thicket. Here the unpaved lane joins a public road.

Turn right at this point and head over or around a grass verge.

Walk a very short distance down the paved road.

Soon on your left you will see a footpath waymarking sign pointing towards a track besides a track.

Head down this track.

After a short distance you come to a metal gate into a field.

Pass through this gate and cross the field, walking on the right following a sporadic line of trees.

You pass across a fence line midway across the field.

Once on the other side of the field you pass over a style next to a very old looking white washed cottage.

Just past the cottage you emerge onto a country lane.

Here, turn right and walk a very short way in the direction of a footpath waymarking sign pointing up a bank on the left hand side of the lane.

Once level with the sign, turn left and head up a flight of steps cut into the side of the lane.

Passing through the gate at the top, follow the worn path across the fields.

Having headed into the second field, stay close to the line of the hedgerow, heading for a style set close to the edge of the field.

From this point it is possible to look sideways and back for more spectacular views of the Malverns.

Presently you approach the edge of a copse.

Here there is a gate chained shut, but upon which someone has put a rudimentary kind of style made from wood and metal which you can clamber over.

On the other side walk down a path through the overgrown, but not especially wide thicket.

Once on the other side of the trees there is a gate out into a wide open grassy field.

Cross the field heading in the direction of a straggle of trees set in the hedgerow on the far side.

Upon reaching these one has a style right next to it allowing access to the adjacent field.

Here you find yourself in an even larger field. Head towards the right hand corner of it. I found that the grass was excellent for cleaning off the mud caked onto my boots.

In the right hand corner of the field there is a gate. This leads out onto the major A4104 which leads all of the way to Upton-upon-Severn.

Turn right once on the road and walk along it for several hundred metres passing several scattered houses.

I found the traffic to be not that bad, and the road’s generally straight alignment and gentle bends meant that what motorists there were, tended to have decent advance warning of my presence. There’s also a decent grass verge for most of this stretch.

Presently you come to a bridge across a small river.

Just after the bridge there is a waymarking sign leading onto a footpath.

Cross over the road here and head right onto the footpath.

This path leads through a tangled thicket of trees, before presently opening out with a field on your right hand side, and steadily turning into a well made track.

Keep on this track for a good distance.

Eventually you come to a junction, near two huge, incredibly grand red brick houses of a late 17th or early 18th Century vintage.

Here you join a small paved lane and turn left.

Presently the lane joins with the A4104 again.

When it does so, turn right.

After a short distance along the road – which has a proper pavement in this section – you approach a junction.

Turn left at this junction and keep on the main road.

It slopes steadily downhill. Keep on walking along the road past a rugby club, doctor’s surgery and over a bridge – and in no time at all the spire of Upton-upon-Severn’s new church appears in the distance.

After these you reach the edge of Upton-upon-Severn “proper”.

Soon you are walking along the high street stuffed with restaurants, pubs and independent shops in the direction of the historic core, which sits between The White Lion Hotel, “Pepperpot” former church tower and the River Severn.

Getting Back

On paper Upton-upon-Severn is rather well served by buses to and from Worcester where it is possible to get trains back up to the West Midlands conurbation, heading south west towards Bristol and Wales and across the Cotswolds in the direction of Oxford and London. I say on paper, because the last bus heading north (on school days only) is at 15:40. Buses are roughly one every one or two hours throughout the day prior to that. And sometimes not even that, as I found out, when the 15:40 just did not show-up whilst I was waiting for it. Shout out to Nick from Great Malvern Taxis who swiftly came across to Upon-upon-Severn to collect me and take me back to Great Malvern Railway Station when I had to find a cab to rescue me.