Tenbury Wells

Though Tenbury is expanding, and encroaching on the brook, much of the valley remains unspoilt, especially below Brook Farm, where the landscape is managed with conservation in mind.

The route also takes in Oldwood Common, which is currently covered by a mass of buttercups.

So are many of the meadows along the way, but the size of the common makes for a particularly stunning sight when the buttercups are at their peak.

Oldwood Common is designated as open access land so you can explore freely and don’t need to stick to the route described here.

Tenbury itself is an under-rated destination. Much less famous than Upton-upon-Severn or Pershore, it’s nevertheless full of charming old buildings, many of them tucked away on the back streets but easily discovered on a short stroll around town.

This walk includes some of them, such as 17th-century Pembroke Cottage and Pembroke House (a pub). The name comes from a connection with Pembroke College, Oxford. Also on the route are the unusual Round Market and the bizarre Pump Room, the style of which is described on an adjacent information panel as ‘oriental Chinese gothic’.

The Pump Room is a relic of 19th-century Tenbury’s unsuccessful attempts to market itself as a spa, following the discovery of a saline spring.

FACTFILE

Start: Tenbury Wells, grid ref SO595683.

Length: Six miles/9.5km.

Maps: OS Explorer 203, OS Landranger 138.

Terrain: Sheep and dairy pasture, meadows, orchards, arable, woodland; mostly flat with just three tiny slopes.

Footpaths: Mostly good-to-excellent, but a few are sub-standard, with very poor waymarking, especially around Hill Farm. You may also have to climb over a gate (the latch is engulfed by hawthorn).

Stiles: 13, and one gate (see above).

Parking: Palmer’s Meadow, near south end of Teme Street.

Buses: Yarrantons’ 758, Worcester Tenbury, stops at the Regal on Teme Street, Mon-Sat only; worcestershire.gov.uk/bustimetables or 01905 765765.

Refreshments:Tenbury.

DIRECTIONS

1 LeaveTenbury on Kyrewood Road (B4204 to Clifton) and take the first footpath on the right, Godsons Walk. Ignore branching paths, cross Kyre Brook at stepping stones and proceed to the main road (A4112), meeting it by Pembroke House.Turn left between Pembroke House and Pembroke Cottage, then take a path to the left of a school. Keep roughly straight on at all junctions.

2 Soon after passing a pumping station, turn left to join a grassy path which follows Kyre Brook before turning right to Bromyard Road (B4214). Turn left, passTerrillsLane and Mill Meadow, then shortly take an unsigned track on the left. Bear right after 100 metres to walk through a meadow, roughly parallel with the track. Cross a stile to a junction and turn right. Don’t cross the bridge at the next junction, but go past the front of a new house then over a stile into a field.

3 Head across the field to a pair of oak trees on a slope, then continue uphill to a gate by another oak.Walk across a meadow then straight onat a junction marked by a waymarked post, climbing a slight slope to a stile by a fallen tree.

The path then leads through a copse and along the edge of an orchard to a track.Turn right along the track, ignoring another footpath on the right (only because, after a promising start,it becomes impossible to find a way through).

4 Go straight on at a junction, past Brook Farm and a couple of cottages, then through a meadow. Approaching the far end, turn right to cross Kyre Brook and go through a gate. Walk uphill to another gate then along the edge of an orchard towards Hill Farm. Go into the farmyard and turn right to find two adjacent gates. Go through the left-hand one and then diagonally left down a field. Cross a footbridge and proceed towards a pollarded ash tree about 50m left of a house.

5 Cross Bromyard Road to another path and follow the left-hand hedge through two fields before turning right on a bridleway.

After crossing a brook, turn left across a field corner and through a gate. Continue in a similar direction through dairy pasture, passing to the right of Terrills Farm then through a gate to a track and a bridleway junction.

6 Go straight on, entering another pasture and crossing to the left-hand gate at the other side, after which the bridleway is easily followed to the Tenbury road (A4112) at Oldwood. Cross to Oldwood Common and go roughly straight across, very gradually moving closer to the right-hand edge until yousee a track going right, with a waymarked post visible a little further down the track. Walk along the track then turn left by the post, walking through woodland then back to grassland.Turn right on a track then walk through more woodland to a junction.

7 Fork right and walk past Manor Farm to enter a pasture. Keep straight on by the left-hand edge to a junction then turn left on a path which leads through meadows to Haresbrook Park where the footpath becomes a lane.Ignore a path on the left and a bridleway on the right and proceed to a lane junction. Turn right, then keep straight on at the next junction.

8 Take the second footpath on the left – not the obvious one signed to Bednall Bridge but an easily missed one a few metres further on.

It’s a well-trodden path which soon swings right.There are unofficial branching paths but the route towardsTenbury is clear enough.

Turn left when you emerge on a street of bungalows and pass through Orchard Court, after which the route is obvious again.

When you reach Tenbury church you can go either left or right but it’s more interesting to turn right