THE "overwhelming" flood of visitors to an open day at Wilden Church has inspired communities in Wyre Forest to set up a new tourist trail that is being launched on Easter Monday.

Wilden Church warden, Pam Craven, who helped to spearhead the Wilden to Witley Church trail, said it had generated a great feeling of togetherness throughout the district and excited local residents, schools and businesses, as well as churchgoers.

She said she and other members of Wilden Church had thought up the initiative after the last open day, on a rainy day last month, highlighted a vast interest in local heritage.

Many of the 1,339 visitors who turned up had travelled great distances to the church and asked for advice on where else to visit in the vicinity.

"People were also using the Rock Tavern and Bird in Hand and places like that so we just felt that if we extended it by giving them more things to do then the whole area would benefit," said 58-year-old Mrs Craven.

"And it's such a lovely area, with such beautiful countryside, that we thought it would make a lovely day out."

She added: "I think as word gets around it will bring in lots of visitors because people like having lots of things to do and for people who fancy doing something a little bit different there are lots of possibilities.

"There are so many unusual features in each of the churches."

The trail opens at 10am on Easter Monday and is devised to take visitors on a circuit throughout some of the most spectacular Worcestershire countryside.

It starts at Wilden Church and goes on to St Michael's church in Stourport, St Leonards in Ribbesford, St Bartholomew's Church in Areley Kings and St Peter's Church in Astley.

From there visitors will be directed to St Mary in Shrawley, St Martin of Tours in Holt, St Michael and All Angels in Great Witley, St Mary and St Michael churches in Abberley and St Peter's and St Paul's Church in Rock.

The trail ends at St Giles in Heightington and all the churches are free to enter.

Mrs Craven said stained glass windows designed by the pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones, were one of the attractions of Wilden Church.

She added St Leonards in Ribbesford also had one of those, as well as very unusual wooden pillars and Rock Church, which is featured in a book called England's Thousand Best Churches as a fine example of Norman architecture, is displaying its annual art exhibition over the Easter weekend.

Grandmother-of-two, Mrs Craven, who has been co-ordinating the initiative with the help of the chaplain for agricultural and rural life in the diocese of Worcester, Robert Barlow, added a little group from each of the 12 churches on the trail had been behind it.

"We think we've come up with a brilliant route, with lots of different things to look at," she added.

"The painted medieval tombs of Astley are very different from the monumental iron tombs, cast in the Baldwin works and standing in Stourport churchyard.

"Box pews at Rock and stocks in Rock are just some of the other unusual features to be found," she added.

A Wilden to Witley Trail leaflet has also been produced, using grants from the Department for Farming and Rural Affairs and the chaplaincy for rural and agricultural life, and will be available in libraries, tourists offices and hotels across Worcestershire and neighbouring counties.

It is hoped the leaflet will be circulated more widely in future.

More information on the trail and opening times for the churches can be obtained by calling 01299 878224 or e-mailing pamela.craven@btopenworld.com