On our way back from the Brecon Beacons at the start of July, we decided to break up the drive home with a stop in the Malvern Hills, which were right along our route home. I’d visited the Three Counties show ground several years ago for work and been very sorry that I didn’t have time to visit the hills, and I was happy to finally have an opportunity to rectify this.
There are many routes which explore the Malvern Hills, ranging from the fairly short to the rather long (such as this 9 mile end to end ramble). As we were just after a quick stop on the way home and didn’t want to hang around for too long, we opted for a short stroll up and down Worcester Beacon, the highest point in Worcestershire, which took about 45 minutes starting from the Upper Beacon Road car park.
Arriving at around 10.30am on a Friday, I was pleasantly surprised that we managed to get parked with no issues (especially after driving through some extremely busy villages on the way). The car park here is pay & display (£5.50 all day), when we visited the card payment wasn’t working, so you’ll need cash if it hasn’t been fixed since.
Before we set off I swapped from my trainers to my walking boots, but it turned out I needn’t have bothered. The path from the car park is tarmacked and level pretty much the whole way to the top of the hill, making both walking and navigation straightforward. From the car park, follow the path up hill pretty much until you see the summit – nice and easy!
The walk up to Worcester Beacon starts off gently uphill (the car park giving you a fair head start in terms of elevation), with lovely views over the rest of the Malvern Hills, especially looking back to Jubilee Hill and Black Hill. There are quite a few benches scattered along the way looking back over the views, and it would be a great place to stop and enjoy your lunch or a drink.
Once we were most of the way to the top, the path turned grassier and steepened – happily this doesn’t last for too long. There were sheep and cows grazing up here but thankfully they were behind electric fencing – my favourite kind of cow. From here we reached the summit very quickly, where there’s a trig pillar and a toposcope which identifies the neighbouring hills you can see on a clear day.
We spent a few minutes at the top, which we surprisingly had to ourselves. We’d seen a few other people coming down on our way up, and while it was certainly busier than the walks we’d done earlier in the week in Wales, it was nowhere near as busy as places like the Yorkshire Three Peaks.
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. The walk we did was stile free, and didn’t present any issues for our dogs. While the livestock was fenced off, the fencing was the kind which a dog could easily nip under, so do keep this in mind if you want to let your dog off the lead.
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