Back to Bredon Hill

From Seasons

I walk quite often with the Harvington Walking group and as luck would have it today's walk was around Bredon Hill, just two days since a New Year walk, also on Bredon Hill. However, this time our start point was on the other side of the hill. We had agreed with Beckford Silk that we could park in their cark park while we walked and that we would eat at Two Jay's Café at the end of the walk.

View Bredon Hill from Beckford 2013-01 in a larger map

We started walking at around 9:30 and at the point at which we should have left the road we were faced with a recently ploughed field that had been turned into a quagmire by the recent rain. This straight segment was only about a third of a mile so we just walked a little further along the road and covered two sides of a triangle rather than one to get to the same point. We had only walked about halfway up the hill when we stopped for coffee some seasonal remnants, i.e. some mince pies and/or stollen. We then continued up the hill to a derelict barn at Shalden Farm, the highest point (~225m) of this walk before heading back down in the direction of the village of Conderton.

Just north of Conderton we turned east back towards Beckford, the lower slopes that we were traversing became very wet, muddy and slippery though, unlike the walk two days earlier, no one fell. Along the route we called in at the Beckford Parish Church of St John the Baptist for a quick look see. I have rung the bells here on occasion so am reasonably familiar with the church but the early Norman architecture was of great interested to a couple of our party. From the church it was but a short walk along Ashton Road to our start point.

After getting out of dirty walking gear we visited Two Jay's Café for lunch. The lady working the café managed to take the order, prepare and serve the food and drinks, clear up and take payment all on her lonesome. It did take a while but we were not in a great hurry. The food was reasonably priced and good value for money. The ladies among us could resist the opportunity afforded by the silk works and shop.

The walk was only a little over 5½miles but with the wet conditions did slow us down.

A New Year's walk

From Walks

In recent year's we've started the New Year with a walk to blow away the cobwebs. 2012 was, to put it mildly, wet. In England we experienced the wettest year on record. Our local weather station in Pershore recorded  841.09mm of precipitation in 2012 compared with the aveage value of 606.4mm based on the previous 30 years.

New Year's day was forecast to be dry and bright but the ground was saturated, the River Avon was back within its banks but, as seen from our photos, the River Severn had not yet peaked. With this in mind the route chosen was one that minimised the chance of ploughing our way through lots of mud.

View Bredon Hill from Bredon's Norton 2013-01 in a larger map

Walking on hills rather that lowland seemed like the best way to avoid saturated/muddy ground so we settled on walking on Bredon Hill, a large neaby hill with lots of public footpaths over and around. Our start point was Bredon's Norton, a small village on the western slope of the hill. We parked near the church and then headed up the lane that leads to Woollas Hall. The next leg of the walk up through some ancient grassland to the ridge is much wetter and very slippery. We are not the only people out for a walk on this beautiful New Year's day and most head north for the tower, Parsons' Folly. We instead head south along The Warren with a pretty dry path before heading back down the hill through Aldwick Wood and Norton Park. The lower slopes were again very wet and slippery and one of our party lost her footing and got plastered with mud! Oh well, better to happen near the end of the walk. We looked in at Bredon's Norton, Chapel of Ease before returning to the car.

The walk was only about 4½miles but with the wet conditions it took just over 2hours. A nice refreshing start to 2013.

gps track as GPX

Wychavon Way

It is spring which means time to start walking again. The weather over the Easter break has been ideal for walking and we managed to get in a nice one day walk in beautiful weather around the Daffodil Way starting the circular walk at Dymock in Gloucestershire.

Our main objective for the holiday was to walk the Wychavon Way which passes through neighbouring villages with the halfway point near home. We decided 4 days would allow for an unhurried walk of the ~42miles track.

As we were planning the walk a new route had just been agreed but it was not yet marked and no maps were available so we opted to follow the old route created to commemorate the Silver Jubilee in 1977. This route connects Holt Fleet to Winchcombe and we walked in this roughly Southeastern direction.

Day 1 took us to a point East of Droitwich just past the M5. I now understand one of reasons to reroute the walk, the section around Droitwich was not at all interesting and involved walking through an industrial estate and quite a distance along roads. The marking of the route was very poor, perhaps it has not been maintained because it will not be part of the new route. The second leg was more interesting with walking along streams, through woodland and with just a few lanes to cross before breaking again at Rous Lench just a couple of miles from home. The rest of the route was very scenic and included several hills that provided lovely panoramic views over the Vale of Evesham.

We left the Lenches and from Cracombe Hill we could see across the River Avon to our next high point - Bredon Hill. From here on the general route proved easy enough since it takes in all the high points, after Bredon Hill we head for Alderton Hill followed by Stanley Mount before descending into Winchcombe.

Last spring we walked the Worcestershire Way which is also maintained by Worcestershire County Council. It is quite clear that the Wychavon Way needs work, the new route looks like it should be a big improvement since it starts at Droitwich and misses the new industrial estates but I think this is not enough. The marking of the route is appalling in places and much of it is along bridleways which were very cut up by horses. The change of end point to Broadway makes some sense since it is within Wychavon District which is not the case for Winchcombe.

GPS track