Pershore

AUGUST is plum time in Pershore, with a monthlong festival culminating in a number of events on the bank holiday weekend. Details are available at pershoreplumfestival.org.uk or by phoning 01386 556591 or 565373. Or call in at the tourist information centre and pick up some leaflets. One leaflet describes three short walks around the town, visiting numerous points of interest, including many of Pershore’s loveliest buildings. The walks are colour-coded to reflect Pershore’s most famous products – greengages, yellow egg plums and purple plums. Although the area has been important for fruitgrowing since the Middle Ages, it was only in the 19th century that the yellow egg plum was developed by breeding from a wild plum growing in Tyddesley Wood. The purple plum was created towards the end of the century after further experimentation.

The ‘plum walks’ could easily be combined with this much longer one to the north of town. It includes a developing wetland area at Avon Meadows and also a rather unexpected wetland by Piddle Brook, where swans have nested this summer just a few hundred metres from a landfill site.

FACT FILE

Start: Pershore, grid ref SO950460 Length: Eight-and-a-half miles/13.5km. Maps: OS Explorer 190, OS Landranger 150. Terrain: Flat farmland, pastoral and arable. Footpaths: Most are problem-free but two at Drakes Broughton are extremely poor (see point five) and waymarking is also poor in places. There are several discrepancies between the paths on the map and on the ground. Stiles: 16. Parking: Avon Meadows. Buses: 166/382/550/551; worcestershire.gov.uk/ bustimetables or 01905 765765. Refreshments: Pershore and Wyre Piddle.

DIRECTIONS

1 Walk to the river Avon and head upstream. After crossing a brook bear left away from the river, following a well-trodden path to Wyre Mill, and then along Mill Lane to Wyre Piddle. After passing Wyre Marine, look out for Smith’s Meadow, where you can get down to the river if you wish. You can rejoin the lane further along. Walk through Wyre Piddle then turn left on George Lane, which soon becomes a track.

2 Cross the A44 and walk towards a landfill site until you can join a footpath on the left. Go along a field edge for a few paces then turn right into woodland. Walk towards the far side and turn left through the trees. After you emerge from the wood proceed across a field then cross a footbridge into a much larger field. Continue through this, guided by waymarked posts and passing two pools and a wetland area by Piddle Brook.

3 Turn left at a junction, over a footbridge and then into sheep pasture. Turn right, following a waymarked route alongside the perimeter fence of Throckmorton airfield. Eventually, a gate gives access to a private road and a waymark indicates that you should continue in the same direction across grassland and then through trees to a public road. In fact, it’s difficult to find a way through the trees so you may need to turn right along the private road in order to join the public road at the entrance to an industrial estate. Either way, turn left along the road. It’s not usually very busy but there is one longish stretch without adequate verges so care is required.

4 Cross Upton Snodsbury Road to a track opposite, which is a public bridleway, despite the lack of signage. Keep straight on when the track turns left and follow the bridleway through fields to meet another road. Turn left to the A44. Turn right on the footway then shortly cross to Stonebow Road. Cross a nettle-infested verge after 100m to join a path on the right. Walk along the left-hand field edge to reach a path junction. Turn left, crossing a brook, and go straight across fields to Stonebow Road. Cross to a footpath opposite.

5 Go to the far left corner of a field, then continue in the same direction across another. Cross the railway and turn left for a short distance to find access to a maizefield. No path has been made but walkers have trampled down enough of the crop to provide an adequate passage to the far side of the field. Turn left at the far side, walking along the edge until you can cross the brook on your right at a hedge gap shortly before a railway bridge. There is no waymarking here, and the path is not quite where it should be, but turn right alongside the brook, then turn left along the field edge when you come to a hedge. Stay by the hedge as the path becomes increasingly overgrown. After about 300m you will see the first waymark, which does at least confirm that you’re going the right way, but there is more overgrowth to struggle through before you reach a road.

6 Turn right, then left over a broken stile into a paddock. Walk along the right-hand edge then cross a stile in a rickety fence. Keep close to the edge in the second field so as not to miss a stile (broken step) to a lane. Turn left and after 400m take a footpath on the left which runs beside the lane, past free-range poultry and pigs, until a waymark directs you left. Walk past some caravans then turn right to enter a very large field. Turn left by the hedge, walk down to a fallen stile then go diagonally right to cross Bow Brook at Gig Bridge. Keep roughly straight on, but trending very slightly to the right so that you join a track which runs alongside a short length of hedge. Keep straight on at the end of the hedge, following the track to a street. Go straight on to the main road, turn right, then left into Pershore.

Your Worcester News recommends the use of OS Explorer Maps, your ideal passport to navigating the countryside. This walk is based on OS Explorer 190.

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