Distance: 8.6 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Circular walk from Bromsgrove Railway Station to Dodford the “Chartist village” founded in 1848 situated just the other side of the M5 home of the National Trust’s Rosedene preserved Chartist cottage.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

A Radical Village in Bromsgrove District

Everybody associates Bromsgrove with suburban living. But the town and its surroundings’s connection to middle England’s dream of an individual dwelling with a driveway and a little bit of land around it is longer and rather more utopian than you would imagine.

Due west of Bromsgrove lies Dodford, a leafy, pretty affluent village popular with those who commute into Birmingham. It is separated from the bulk of Bromsgrove by the M5 otherwise the two settlements would have probably merged.

Visitors to Dodford are struck by its unusual layout. It feels far more remote than its situation close to Bromsgrove, the motorway and the West Midland conurbation’s southern fringe. Like many modern suburbs the settlement is organised around a grid pattern. With its trees, hedges and wide plots upon which many houses are set back behind tall planting the Dodford has a genuinely rural feel despite several hundred people living there.

The reasons why Dodford is laid out like this date back to the early Victorian period. Historically the Dodford area was sparsely populated, partly an artefact of North Worcestershire’s hilly terrain and how heavily wooded it was up until modern times, but compounded in law by the fact that the area where the village now stands was part of the medieval royal forest of Feckenham until 1301. Though there was a small Augustine priory founded in the 12th Century on land that now comprises Dodford up until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s. After the priory was closed the area reverted to being farmland until the 1840s when the Chartists arrived.

Chartism was an early Victorian movement seeking wide ranging political reform to reduce corruption and politically empower working men primarily through granting all of them the vote at parliamentary elections and ensuring that elected representatives were more accountable to the electorates that selected them. It existed as a recognisable political phenomenon between 1838, six years after limited electoral and parliamentary reform was carried out by the first Reform Act, and 1857, after which it became sublimated into later liberal and socialist political campaigns and movements.

The movement can be considered to be of the radical left and was pretty heterogeneous. Leadership figures, sympathetic media figures and rank and file activists of varying degrees of commitment agreed on broad principles but otherwise had quite different ideas about how society should be organised. Bearing in mind the substantial socio-economic, technological and consequent ideological differences between the mid-19th Century and even a generation later, some Chartists put their faith in political reform alone, adhering to a world view akin to modern British liberalism, whereas others held positions which accorded more with those of the later trade union, socialist and even libertarian movements.

One of the idiosyncratic leaders to emerge from the Chartist political and ideological ferment of the late 1830s and early 1840s was Feargus O’Connor an Irish lawyer and gentleman landowner. O’Connor was of the belief that political reform would be achieved by enabling as many working men as possible to meet the property thresholds for voting in parliamentary elections set down by the 1832 Reform Act. An approach which dovetailed with his wider belief that many of the country’s social questions would be resolved through creating a wider class of economically independent, self sustaining, small farmers who would privately produce crops on lands which they owned and managed themselves.
The vehicle for advancing these objectives which O’Connor settled upon was the National Land Company. Established in 1846 the National Land Company endeavoured to purchase sites for the creation of farming settlements upon which pioneering working men farmers could afford to buy smallholdings upon which they would independently live close to one another in rural communities where they could earn a living through farming. Interest in the scheme was strong amongst Chartists for a time with 70,000 men subscribing to the National Land Company in the hope of being able to secure a rural smallholding.

One of the five sites – and eventually perhaps the most successful – which the National Land Company managed to buy before its insolvency and winding up in 1851 was Dodford.

Established by the purchase of the Great Dodford estate and 273 acres of adjoining farmland in 1848, O’Connor and his followers hoped to settle 70 families on the site. The government, the rich, powerful local officials, indeed the British establishment as a whole, was very suspicious of the National Land Company. Handily for them it was ruled that the proposed means of allocating the plots – at random through a raffle of the Company’s subscribers – was illegal under the lotteries act. Instead the land had to be sold and leased through a market mechanism based upon who the highest bidder was in line with the established common practice for leasing and selling land.

This bump in the road cleared, the first 44 families arrived at Doford on the 2nd July 1849 to take possession of their newly purchased plots. The first few years were hard for the settlers. Their existing familiarity with farming varied and many struggled to grow produce in the thick, clay like, sandstone north Worcestershire soil. A year after Dodford’s foundation many of the settlers were hiring local agricultural workers to tend their plots, while commuting to Bromsgrove or into the West Midlands to practise their old trades.

But this was not the end of the story. The Dodford settlers received a considerable amount of solidarity from Chartists in the Black Country and around Birmingham, who gave up their free time on days off work to come down and help. Supporters of the settlement working in Stourbridge’s metal industry even designed a special fork for turning Dodford’s heavy clay soil.

After the National Land Company folded in 1851 many of the settlers opted to buy out their holdings freeing them from having to pay ground rent. By the 1860s when the handful of other National Land Company Chartist settlements were floundering due to their location and the small size of the plots surrounding the houses Dodford was flourishing. This was because the settlers had discovered that the clay soils with a bit of work were perfect for growing soft fruits, especially strawberries, and other market garden produce much in demand in the growing and increasingly affluent West Midlands towns only a few miles to the north.

This prosperity continued for several decades, its radical and non-conformist Christian traditions remaining strong, up until the time of the First World War. Indeed, Dodford underwent a rediscovery in the 1880s and 1890s when a new generation of land reform campaigners hailed it as an example of how successful privately owned, small plot farming in a wider community setting could be. In a small irony, this publicity led to the establishment of a new community of smallholders at Catshill to the east of where Dodford stands, who also began growing strawberries tanking the price of the fruit in the West Midlands area which caused economic woes in both communities for a time.

After the First World War, competition from larger growers further from metropolitan areas who benefited from new transport and storage methods, coupled with the growth of Birmingham’s economy attracting semi-skilled, skilled blue and white collar workers into the city, and a spate of purchases by commuters of Dodford properties on their spacious plots put paid to the market gardening community which had developed from the 1850s. Over time Dodford morphed into the quiet, affluent and incredibly leafy dormitory suburb it remains to this day.

In 1997 the National Trust purchased one of the better preserved plots and Chartist built homes. Known as Rosedene, it has been purchased for £120 (and later another £130 to buy the freehold) by a retired East India Company staffer from Ireland called William Hodgkiss, though he appears to have not been able to make a go of the plot and left after a few years. The property was then run as a smallholding fairly consistently up until 1996 when the last owner died and the National Trust bought the site at the resulting auction. The National Trust has since conserved the site, removing later additions from the plot and returning the site and house to how they may have appeared in the mid-19th Century. Rosedene can be visited upon request, though it is sometimes let by the National Trust as a holiday property.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

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This walk from Bromsgrove to Dodford, a rare example of a successful Chartist settlement founded by the National Land Company in the late 1840s, begins from Bromsgrove Railway Station.

Exit the platforms via the station’s footbridge, heading to the left once up on the bridge, and then walk down the steps to the entrance onto the station forecourt.

Once out on the forecourt turn left and walk across the car park.

On the far side there is a footpath leading through a fence onto a new building housing estate.

Once through the fence and standing in the estate, turn right. Follow the road up past a barrier stopping cars just driving through, then follow the road as it turns to the left.

Keep on walking straight down the road until it merges with a main road called Stoke Road.

On reaching Stoke Road turn left and keep walking straight for quite some distance.

Presently you reach a crossroads on the A38 dual carriageway (called Redditch Road in Bromsgrove). Use the crossing lights located slightly to the right to cross.

Once on the other side keep on walking straight for quite some distance, passing the South Bromsgrove High School on your right.

Eventually after walking for a fair while you come to the old A38 running out of Bromsgrove town centre.

Here turn left and walk along the road for a short distance until you are level with some pedestrian traffic lights on the right leading across to where the cleared site of an old pub stands.

Just up from the pedestrian crossing and the cleared pub site on the right is a side road. Turn right and head down this road which runs through Bromsgrove’s western suburbs.

Keep on walking straight ahead along this road.

Presently you reach the edge of the town. Keep on following the road. Soon you reach a point where the pavement peters out. Here a path runs off to the right behind a hedgerow. Once behind the hedgerow turn left and follow the path as it runs in parallel with the hedgerow separating the path from the road.

Soon you reach the end of the path and rejoin the road. Here continue along the grass verge beside the road heading downhill.

Approaching a small cluster of houses you come to a junction on your left.

Here, turn left and walk down the lane.

Soon you reach a short tunnel which carries the M5 across the lane. Walk through the tunnel.

On the far side now firmly out in the countryside, keep on along the lane passing a farmyard to your left.

Just after the farmyard on your right there is a waymarked metal gate leading into a field.

Once in the field follow the footpath in front of you running slightly to the right up a hillside.At the top of the hill there is a gate which you pass through.

When you are on the far side of the gate follow a demarcated footpath around the edge of a field. On reaching the bottom of the field reach a metal gate leading out onto a driveway.

Upon reaching the driveway turn right and follow the driveway for some distance. Presently you come to a metal gate set in a hedgerow on your right.

This gate leads out onto a lane. Once on the lane turn right and walk along the lane for quite some distance. Soon on the right you pass a vast 17th Century manor house, Monsieurs Hall.

The lane steadily slopes downhill until you reach the busy A448 running between Kidderminster and Bromsgrove.

When there is a break in the traffic, cross the road and then turn left down a snicket running towards a small cluster of houses just off the A448.

Soon you reach a cul-de-sac running towards The Park Gate Inn Pub.

Just after passing the pub there is a car park on the right. Walk across this car park towards a footgate leading out into a field.

Once through the gate walk straight ahead following a clearly defined path around the edge of a field.

Presently you reach a hedgerow which the footpath crosses. Keep walking straight ahead along the footpath beyond the hedge approaching a gate set in a far thicker hedgerow.

Upon passing through the gate you arrive in a horse paddock on the edge of the hamlet of Fockbury, where A.E. Housman was born in 1859. Once in the paddock turn left and start walking forward passing a metal shed on the edge of the paddock clambering across a stile halfway there. Having passed the metal shed you reach the far side of the paddock where there is a metal gate leading onto a driveway which leads to a road.

Once beside the road there is a stile on the far side, slightly to the right, which you cross entering a field. At this point you are approaching the edge of Dodford.

On entering the field follow a footpath across the field until you reach a gate.

Walk through the gate, then walk around the edge of the field until you reach a wooden footpath marker. Off to the left you can see the distinctive tower of Dodford’s early 20th Century Anglican church across the fields.

Upon reaching the wooden footpath marker turn left following a footpath across the field towards a clump of woodland on the far side.

When you reach the woodland there is a footpath running steeply downhill into a dell. Follow the path downhill through the trees into the dell.

At the bottom of the dell you reach a wooden footbridge which you cross.

On the far side of the bridge follow the path up a bank until you reach a footpath junction marked with a wooden waymark.

Here on the path turn right, walking a short distance until you come to a wooden footpath marker.

The wooden footpath marker points to the left up another bank. Turn left and walk up the bank.

At the top of the bank walk across a meadow reaching a metal gate out onto a lane.

Once in the lane cross the road and head through a gate on the far side.

Follow the footpath beyond the gate downhill.

This leads to a further gate, beyond which you cross a brook then carry on along the path.

The path leads out past Dodford’s 1960s and 1970s vintage village hall to one of the main roads through the village.

Upon reaching the road you are stood at a junction with a road running off to the north straight ahead of you. Walk straight ahead along this road. All around you, you are surrounded by the high hedges and scattered plots with little detached houses on them which characterise Dodford.

Soon you come to a crossroads. Here if you turn left you soon reach Rosedene, the National Trust’s reconstructed and conserved mid-19th Century Chartist dwelling and small holding plot (usually only viewable by appointment).

After visiting Rosedene, return to the road then head back towards the crossroads.

At the crossroads keep on walking straight ahead, along the long straight road through Dodford. On your right just before you walk up a short, but somewhat steep hill, there is Dodford’s old Baptist chapel, still looking like a little mid-Victorian rural nonconformist church building, but now a private house.

Presently you reach a road running along the eastern edge of the settlement.

Turn right upon reaching the road, heading straight downhill into a dell.

Keep walking straight ahead and soon you leave Dodford behind you entering woodland.

You walk through a wooded dell, approaching a remote seeming cottage surrounded by trees.

At the cottage the road curves around to the right. Then runs uphill out of the woodland.

Here you reach a junction with a small cluster of houses behind you.

Turn left and walk a short distance. Off to your right there is a footpath waymark pointing down a semi paved track.

Turn left and head down this track.

Soon at a slight bend in the track there is a footpath running off downhill around the edge of a field.

Turn right down this path and follow it downhill.

This leads to a point in a hedgerow next to fields planted with crops with a point where the footpath runs through.

Just after the hedgerow the path forks. Here take the right hand fork following a clear footpath across a field planted wth crops. On the far side you walk through a metal gate into a grassy pasture.

In front of you is a farmhouse with numerous sheds and outbuildings around it. Keeping close to the hedge on the right, walk across the field. Next to the entrance of the farmhouse compound, until you come to a gate tucked in the corner of the field.

Pass through the gate, cross the farmhouse driveway, and head through the gate on the far side.

Follow the path up a slight bank and then straight across a field approaching another farm. Presently you reach a gate in a hedgerow which you pass through.

On the far side of the gate turn right and head a little way uphill towards the farm buildings in front of you.

Just before you reach the nearest barn turn left and follow the path a little way across the field.

Soon you reach a point where two path’s cross, right in the middle of the field. Here take the path running downhill to the left.

Follow the path downhill for quite some distance. As you walk the sound of the M5 motorway which you are approaching gets louder.

Presently you reach the stand of trees which screens the field from the motorway. Here there is a wooden bridge leading into the trees. Beyond which you climb up a set of steps and out through the trees to beside the motorway.

Once you reach the side of the motorway turn left and walk a short way to the foot of a flight of steps up onto a footbridge and use it to cross the motorway.

On the far side of the M5 follow the footpath through trees until you reach a gate out onto the side of a road on the edge of Bromsgrove.

Upon reaching Bromsgrove cross the road, and walk straight ahead down a footpath across the field on the far side.

When you reach the housing estate at the bottom of the field, off to the right there is a snicket leading out onto an estate of late 20th Century houses.

Once in the housing estate, walk straight ahead along a cul-de-sac. When you reach a junction where the cul-de-sac meets another road turn left.

Soon you reach another road, here turn right.

Now keep walking straight ahead as the road gets steadily wider and busier as you approach the centre of Bromsgrove.

You pass Bromsgrove churchyard on your right, and then a large branch of ASDA on your left as you near the side of the old A38 which runs right through the middle of the town.

Cross the road opposite Bromsgrove’s bus station take a slight right and head straight ahead along a short stretch of pedestrianised road onto the town’s high street.

Upon reaching Bromsgrove’s pedestrianised high street, turn right.

Walk a short distance down the high street until you reach the end of the pedestrianised area.

Here, turn left and walk uphill.

Over the brow of the hill keep on walking straight down the hill.

Presently you reach a junction on the new A38. Cross the road here and head straight along the road on the other side. This leads towards Bromsgrove Railway Station.

After quite some distance you reach the little high street of Aston, a suburb near the station right on the edge of Bromsgrove.

Cross the road here and head down the access road to the station. Upon reaching the car park of the station head towards the train station buildings.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Bromsgrove Railway Station is served by several buses including the 52 between Kidderminster and Redditch. It is also on the Birmingham Cross City Line with half hourly trains (as of July 2023) to Lichfield and north Birmingham via south Birmingham stations and the city centre. Other services run south towards Droitwich, Worcester, Malvern and Hereford, as well as north to central Birmingham via the University Station.