10:08am Monday 22nd February 2010
By Julie Royle
THE Herefordshire Trail runs for 154 miles, linking the county’s five market towns and passing through some of its finest landscapes.
You can sample it on this walk, but don’t expect it to be well waymarked like the Worcestershire Way. It isn’t, and it can be quite hard to follow at times, so keep a close eye on the map to stay on course.
As you approach St Michael’s church at Edwyn Ralph look for earthworks over to your left – these are all that remain of a motte-andbailey castle, while further earthworks beside the lane indicate the site of a deserted mediaeval village.
FACT FILE
Start: Bromyard, grid ref SO653547.
Length: Seven miles/11km.
Maps: OS Explorer 202, OS Landranger 149.
Terrain: Pasture, arable and woodland; mostly flat with a few gentle slopes.
Footpaths: These are variable but sadly, mostly are neglected. A few paths have crops sown across them and one stile is obstructed by hedging plants.
Stiles: 40.
Parking: Tenbury Road, Bromyard.
Buses: First 420 Worcester-Hereford via Bromyard, daily; herefordbus.info or 01905 765765.
Refreshments: Bromyard.
DIRECTIONS:
1 Walk up the Tenbury Road for about 400 metres then turn left on Lower Hardwick Lane. Take a footpath on the right at a bend in the lane. Branch right when the path forks, and then descend by the right-hand edge of a field to cross the river Frome at a footbridge.
Bear left on a faint path which climbs to a gate, then cross a dismantled railway to follow a track through woodland. Keep straight on when the track bends left, walking along the left-hand edge of a field.
2 Turn right along a lane then right again at the Tenbury road.
Pass Winslow Lodge and join a bridleway, then immediately turn left on a footpath (the Herefordshire Trail). Keep to the left edge through two fields then cross a driveway to take a path just to the right of the access to Wychewood Cottage. Go obliquely down the field to meet the bottom fence opposite the cottage. Keep to the left edge in the next two fields, eventually changing to the other side of the hedge at a stile but continuing in the same direction.
When the path passes through woodland don’t head towards a stile directly ahead but bear slightly right to find a way across a brook and two stiles giving access to the next field. Walk along the righthand edge then cross a stubblefilled field to a footbridge. Walk across a pasture and enter St Michael’s churchyard at Edwyn Ralph.
3 Join a lane and turn left, very soon leaving the Herefordshire Trail. Go left again when the lane forks. Cross the Tenbury road and turn left to find a stile badly overgrown by hazel and hawthorn.
Struggle across and go left across a field to a gate to a lane. Turn right, and then right again towards Thornbury when you come to a junction. At the next junction fork right towards Wall Hills then immediately turn right through a gate to rejoin the Herefordshire Trail. Follow it across a large field then continue along the field edge after passing a tall oak tree.
4 As you pass a wood look for a gate giving access to it. Walk through the wood for a little way then turn left along the edge.
Beyond the wood, proceed along a track as far as a house called Medwan, where the Herefordshire Trail goes off to the right. Follow it to the Tenbury road, cross over and turn left. After a short distance a stile gives access to a field. Go to the far right corner, cross a stile, proceed across a driveway and into another field. Go diagonally left to a stile then along the right-hand edge of the next field to another stile. Don’t cross it; instead, turn left across the field to a small iron gate and cross a lane to a stile opposite.
5 Cross an orchard and enter a field. Go obliquely left to a stile and continue in the same direction across the next field. Cross a footbridge then proceed up a bank to another field. Turn left to a junction and leave the Herefordshire Trail, which turns right to St Michael’s church. Go straight on instead, through a gate into another field, and then go diagonally across it. Cross a stile where a tall hedge meets a fence and turn left beside a brook to a lane.
6 Turn right, then left over a stile onto a path which follows the brook through four fields to reach a path junction where the brook flows into a much larger one. Turn right across the field, not along the edge but to a hedge corner just beyond an oak tree (one of four oaks). Walk along the right-hand edge of the next field, then cross to the other side of the hedge at a gate but continue in the same direction, quite soon meeting the large brook again. Follow it for a while, until just after you pass a ford.
7 Bear right to cross a tributary at a footbridge then turn left, following the tributary, crossing a stile then proceeding past trees and through a gate marked with yellow sticky tape. Continue across two fields to a small wood, rejoin the Herefordshire Trail and soon rejoin the brook too. After passing a path junction bear right so that you’re heading towards the church at Bromyard. Ignore a stile which you will come to and instead, continue to a stone footbridge. Cross this and then walk on through a field and past Three Mills House and Micron Sprayers then turn left and take a footbridge across a road.
Turn left, eventually joining the road and turning right into Bromyard.
Your Worcester News recommends the use of OS Explorer Maps, your ideal passport to navigating the countryside. This walk is based on OS Explorer 202.
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