Distance: 11 miles

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

Difficulty of the terrain: hard

Walk from Rednal on the south west tip of Birmingham to Cradley in the Black Country over the high land to the south west of Birmingham and the Black Country, crossing the Lickey, Waseley and Clent hills.

The Story

Route Notes

Getting Back

The Eye of the South West Midlands

Situated just south west of the Black Country, and not too far from Birmingham either, the Clent Hills are one of the most popular walking areas for people from the West Midlands conurbation. With around one million visitors each year they are apparently Worcestershire’s most visited non-paid for attraction.

This small upland area forms part of the chain of north Worcestershire Hills, which extends across the county’s northern rim almost as far as Warwickshire, and arguably includes the hilly landscape of parts of south Birmingham and the western Black Country too. 

However, the Clents are especially striking within this upland landscape, partly because the two principal hills in the group Walton (the 316 metre above sea level highest point in the Clent Hills) and Clent itself, are twin peaks – and unusually symmetrical – divided by St. Kenelm’s Pass (named after the mythical Mercian boy king who was purportedly murdered and his corpse concealed behind where St. Kenelm’s Chapel now stands). Partly because Walton and Clent both standing somewhat over 300 metres above sea level in a landscape where most hills stand just a little lower than that.

A prominence which means that the Clent Hills are visible from the west of Worcestershire, from the tops of the Abberley, Woodbury and Malvern Hills. While from the summit of the Clent Hills the Clee Hills and the Wrekin are visible in Shropshire, alongside Bredon Hill and the northern part of the Cotswolds ridge to the south east.

The Clent Hills group includes the shorter, but also highly prominent, famously enigmatic, Wychbury Hill on the southern edge of Stourbridge, as well as the bulk of the hills, at the base of which, the village of Clent itself is clustered. 

Walton and Clent Hills and the surrounding landscape are owned and managed as a wild country park, open to all, with well trodden paths, by the National Trust. Prior to being vested in the National Trust by Bromsgrove and Worcestershire councils in 1959 the land had been managed, like the Malvern Hills by a board of conservators, who upheld the traditional centuries old rights of common which pertained to the hills and surrounding chase land. 

Amongst the myths attached to the hills, besides St. Kenlem, is that there was a great battle fought in the Clent Hills between ancient Britons and the invading Romans during the first century CE. With perhaps a higher degree of probability it is claimed that the name Clent is an evolution of the Norse word “klint”, which means cliff, a designation which makes some sense geographically (given the hills’ prominence), and which may gain some credence from a Doomsday Book reference to the area being known as Klinter at the time of the survey in the late 11th Century. 

Route Notes

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

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.

This walk from Rednal to Cradley, crosses much of the north Worcestershire highlands, in particular the Clent Hills, and begins on the edge of Rednal, in the shadow of the Lickey Hills right where Birmingham ends.

Entering the distinctive, beached seaside resort seeming village of Cofton Hacket, where prior to 1953 Birmingham Tramways had their southern terminus, turn right and follow paths up through the trees, out of the village and to the summit of Beacon Hill the 298 metres highest point in the Lickey Hills.

From Beacon Hill turn right, and descend along a road and then a bridleway track to the pass which carries the A38 between Birmingham and Worcestershire.

Here head up into the Waseley Hills Country Park, walking high along the ridge, part of the Midlands Watershed, until you descend to reach Chapman Hill Farm – the former Birmingham school’s farm – right beside the M5.

On the far side of the motorway pick up a footpath, part of the North Worcestershire Path, which runs high along a ridge behind Romsley Hill before reaching a lane which also runs along the ridge.

Follow this road along a long, narrow, wooded ridge, with commanding views out towards the Worcestershire plain, before descending a steep bank to the hamlet of Shutt Mill Lane.

At Shutt Mill Lane follow the North Worcestershire Path onto a well worn footpath which rises steeply out of the valley and then steadily ascends to the summit of Walton Hill, which at 316 metres above sea level, is the second highest hill in the Clent Hills group.

From the summit of Walton Hill descend to the car park and turn right, walking along lanes along the side of Clent Hill, before taking a footpath on the right which runs steadily down through meadows and woodland towards the southwestern tip of Halesowen.

At the Hagley Causeway, cross the road with care, and then pick-up a lane, which is a bit of a rat run so requires careful navigation on the far side, heading into a green salient between Halesowen and Stourbridge which runs deep into the Black Country.

On reaching a small hamlet called Lutley turn left picking up a track across fields. Soon the track turns into a footpath paralleling a lane which runs into woodland and the first suburbs of Cradley.

Walk downhill through the suburbs of Cradley, into the town centre, past the parish church and down to the bottom of the River Stour valley.

Cross the Stour and begin to head uphill until you reach the turning on the left for Cradley Heath station.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Cradley Heath station is on the Jewellery Line with half hourly trains north east to Birmingham and south west to Kidderminster with half carrying on via Droitwich Spa to Worcester. This service is reduced to hourly on Sundays. There are also numerous buses running north towards Dudley and to other destinations across the Black Country as well as Birmingham which call at the interchange in front of Cradley Heath station.