Distance: just over 4 miles
Difficulty of the Terrain: Medium
Get the Route: via Ordnance Survey Maps
Walk across the wild, mysterious and beautiful Wychbury Hill. Which marks the modern boundary between the Black Country and Worcestershire, possesses deep significance as a local landmark, and has connections with several strange occurances.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
A Perennial Place of Mystery
Wychbury Hill’s name has nothing to do with witchcraft. It is an evolution of the name Hwicce, an early medieval sub-kingdom of Mercia which broadly covered the area that today is Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire.
Which does not mean that Wychbury Hill, which today forms part of the boundary between West Midlands county and Worcestershire, does not have a long and significant history. Nor – so some maintain – connections to dark magical practices.
Being 224 metres tall in a landscape, which whilst hilly, consists of far smaller summits, grants Wychbury Hill a degree of significance.
This is something that people have always recognised and been drawn to. The hill is the site of the Iron Age hillfort Wychbury Ring, as well as the mid-18th Century Hagley Obelisk, which at 26 metres high is visible from Shropshire, and a hidden away neoclassical Georgian folly the “Temple of Hephaestus“. More recently a rare grove of 28 yew trees situated in the woodland that partially covers the hill has developed as a site of religious significance for contemporary British paganism.
The hill has the advantage of being in the greenbelt, this means that whilst it is a popular local beauty spot for people from Stourbridge, Hagley and beyond, it retains a partially unkempt and wild character.
It is likely that the hill’s wild character and seclusion, despite being located near major population centres in Birmingham and the Black Country, is what made it the location for what has become one of the midland’s most famous and perplexing modern mysteries.
In the 1940s the body of a still unidentified murder victim was found concealed inside a wych elm in one of the patches of woodland on the hill. This harrowing and gruesome discovery has given rise to all manner of far-fetched and fantastical theories. However, I think that the most likely explanation for the tragic killing and cruel concealment is all too down to earth and familiar.
I feel that the details of the case and a full discussion of them might make some readers uncomfortable. Others I appreciate may find them triggering. As such I have written an overview of the story underlying the case, here (CW: discussion of misogeny, sex work, violence against women, sexual violence [including rape], murder, dismemberment, ritual murder, skeletal remains).
The murder is refered to briefly in the text of the walk in the context of some graffiti referencing it which you will see on the Hageley Obelisk. However, no details of the case are discussed in the text of the walk.
The Walk
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps
If arriving at Stourbridge Junction by train from the direction of Birmingham leave from the platform you have alighted from and head into the car-park. If coming from the direction of Worcester use the subway to get to the same side as the station car-park. There is a bus station in central Stourbridge served by buses from across the Black Country, Birmingham and beyond. It is immediately adjacent to Stourbridge Town Railway Station where you can catch a shuttle train (the amazing Parry People Mover) up to Stourbridge Junction to begin the walk.
Once in the station car park turn right and walk towards the far end of it.
Presently on your left amidst bushes there is a footpath visible.
Once on this footpath turn right.
Follow the path down a short but quite steep slope towards a bridge across the railway line.
Here you will notice the distinctive branding of the Monarch’s Way long distance footpath which you follow for most of the walk. Turn left when you reach the bridge.
Follow the path along beside a little shaded brook across a small park for some distance.
Presently a snicket between two houses comes into view.
Head down this snicket.
At the top of the snicket turn left and walk a short distance along a road of modern suburban houses.
Soon you come to another suburban road, a cul-de-sac.
Cross over and head to the right down this road.
At the bottom there is a short stretch of footpath leading up onto the busy A4036.
Once up by the road, cross over it. Take care as the traffic is often heavy and comes fast downhill.
On the far side of the road turn right.
Head a short distance crossing over a quiet side road running through thick trees.
Over on the far side of this road next to a 1930s semi, on the left hand side, there is a footpath sign.
Head down this path into the trees.
Inside the trees you head along a well used path beside a brook, through a well developed local nature reserve.
There is something of Narnia or Alan Garner about the sudden shift from a busy suburban main road into the relative succession of a primorial, slightly magical, woodland.
Keep on the path as it slopes slightly uphill.
Presently the path comes to a fork.
Here take the left hand fork and head uphill, aided by a flight of steps edged with tree trunks.
At the top of the steps you head to the right follow the path along a line consisting of the backs of garden fences and the trees of the nature reserve.
Presently a snicket heads off the left.
Follow it onto a suburban road.
Albeit one with an interesting piece of street art stencilled onto one of its cabinets.
Once on the road turn right and follow it for some distance.
Presently it merges with a larger, busier road.
Here turn right again and walk along the pavement for a bit.
Soon the road begins sloping downhill.
Presently on the left hand side of the road open fields appear.
At this point begin looking out to your left for a footpath sign next to a horse paddock.
When you reach this footpath head to the left and begin walking up it.
Again you quickly get the sense of entering a wilder, more remote, world.
The path is narrow but very well worn, hemmed on one side by a barbed wire fence, on the other by a consistently thick hedgerow.
Heading steadily uphill, soon the bumpy, wooded crown of Wychbury Hill comes into view.
You pass through a stretch which has the feel of a green lane.
Here over the hedges and fence you get a good view of the very top of the hill.
Presently the path opens out.
Here you can see the top of the hill and the varied, ancient looking woodland at the very top of it.
To your left, incredibly close, but as if a galaxy away, sprawls the Black Country.
You can see right across the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, into Sandwell, as far as the Rowley Hills, and Turners Hill in particular with its transmitting towers, the highest peak in West Midlands county.
Continue on up the meadow towards a line of trees at the top of the slope on which you are walking.
Behind you the spectacular views across Dudley, towards Wolverhampton and beyond, continue.
At the top there is a well trampled section with tree branches strategically placed to help you.
Once over these you pass through a gate, into the woodland and out of West Midlands county into Worcestershire.
Walk through the short, but pleasant stretch of woodland heading for the gate on the far side.
On the other side of the second gate, to your right you get your first glimpse of the Hagley Obelisk.
Here head to the right. You can either follow the line of the fence towards the crest of the hill, and then down from there (this is the official footpath) or else walk up to the Obelisk.
The Obelisk is an impressive structure, constructed in 1758 it is purportedly the oldest neoclassical structure in the UK, which seems a pretty big claim. It was in seriously poor repair until 2010 when it was subject to a major English Heritage restoration job which saw the whole structure more or less dismantled and reassembled. Standing 26 metres tall, there are days when the Obelisk is visible from as far west as Shropshire.
From the Obelisk’s vantage point it is possible on a good day, like the one I was lucky enough to do the walk on, to see as far as the Wrekin and the Clee Hills in Shropshire to the west, the Malverns in the south, and the Abberley Hills more or less straight ahead.
You will notice that the base of the Obelisk is painted with graffiti. This is more than simple vandalism, rather daubing the text “who put Bella in the witch elm” on Hagley Obelisk is a bizarre local tradition stretching back to the 1970s, which has antecedents in the 1940s. The graffiti refers to an 80 year old unsolved murder case, with a gruesome connection to Wychbury Hill, which has all the hallmarks of a genuine modern mystery, and would be an urban legend if it was not true.
From the Obelisk make your way down the slope on the other side.
Approaching the bottom of the slope head to the right.
Here there is a gap in the hedgerow leading into the field beyond.
Head through it and walk a short way down a well worn slope to your right.
Soon, running along an edge, a little bit like a rampart there is another fainter path.
Turn left and walk along it.
Follow the path in the direction of the edge of the field.
On the other side of the field there is a metal gate.
Follow the lane for some distance.
Presently you pass some houses.
A little way after the houses you come to the busy A456 aka Hagley Road, which runs into central Birmingham.
Taking care, as the traffic is invariably incredibly heavy, head over the road.
On the far side take a right turn making for a suburban street which runs up to Hagley Road.
This is the true edge of the north Worcestershire commuter “village” of Hagley, long established as one of Birmingham’s most affluent dormitories.
Walk for a short distance down this suburban road.
Presently turn to the right.
Follow this road for a short distance.
Then turn left and walk a short distance.
Before turning right once more.
You follow this road for a somewhat greater distance.
Until you reach a snicket which you head down.
At the bottom of the snicket turn right.
Follow the road a short distance, until you reach the A456 again.
Use the traffic lights located to your left to cross the road.
Then turn left walking past a bus shelter.
Just beyond the bus shelter head off the road down a footpath waymarked for the Monarch’s Way and North Worcestershire Way, down the side of a telephone exchange.
Soon you reach a junction, turn left here.
Follow the path for some distance through the trees past a medley of woodland, meadows and back gardens.
Eventually you cross the bottom of a large meadow.
Before plunging back into walking between fences and bushes, and then into the fringes of woodland once more.
Soon you approach the back of a small estate of modern houses.
Passing these homes you emerge onto a road with cars travelling fast.
Take care with crossing and head down the footpath more or less adjacent with where you have come out, once on the other side.
Follow this down a short snicket.
Then along the rather verdant front of a terrace of 1970s suburban houses.
Once out into the middle of the estate keep walking straight
Then reaching a long straight stretch of road, turn right and follow it right to the bottom of the estate.
Here on your right, more or less opposite the last house you find a footpath.
Follow the footpath around along a wire fence and a wooden back garden fence.
Take a sharp left turn at the top.
Then follow the path over a bridge.
This is the bridge carrying the railway between Birmingham and Worcester and it is a sign that your journey is nearing its end.
On the other side of the bridge keep walking straight along the path.
To your right there are meadows to the left there are school playing fields.
Presently, at the top of the playing fields you take a hard turn to the left.
This leads along a wooded path for a short distance.
Soon you come to a gate leading out onto a hedgerow lined lane.
Here turn left.
At the bottom of the lane you come out onto a larger road.
Turn left at this point and walk past a series of houses and the buildings of a large secondary school.
The road steeply slopes up to a bridge.
This is another railway bridge.
On the far side to your right there are steps leading down to the forecourt of Hagley Station.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
From Hagley Station frequent trains run back towards Stourbridge and Birmingham (then on towards Solihull and Stratford-upon-Avon). Trains also run south towards Kidderminster and Worcester. From Stourbridge it is possible to get buses to many destinations, whilst Birmingham has trains to all key centres in the Midlands and beyond.