OLD orchards and flower-filled hedgebanks provide the foreground for panoramic views of the Shropshire hills on this lovely walk from Tenbury Wells, which Queen Victoria named ‘the town in the orchard’.

The route visits remote hamlets such as Highwood, Hanley Child and Rochford.

FACTFILE

Start: Teme Street, Tenbury Wells, grid ref SO595683.

Length: 12 miles/19km.

Maps: OS Explorer 203, OS Landranger 138.

Terrain: Pasture, arable, woodland, orchard; a few slopes.

Footpaths: Variable but generally quite poor. Those included on this walk are all usable but many adjoining paths are difficult, or even impossible, so you will need an Explorer map (not a Landranger) if you plan to deviate from the given route.

Stiles: 22.

Parking: Teme Street.

Buses: Yarrantons 758 Worcester- Tenbury, Monday to Saturday only, stops in Teme Street; worcestershire.gov.uk/ bustimetables or 01905 765765.

Refreshments: Tenbury, and the Tally Ho at Broadheath.

DIRECTIONS

1 Walk through Teme Street car park, following signs for the swimming pool, then cross a bridge and follow signs for a skatepark.

Keep straight on along a footpath at the entrance to the skatepark.

Follow the path to a lane, turn left and walk to Rochford.

2 Take a path to St Michael’s Church. Exit the churchyard by the side gate and turn left to find a footpath which bears right across fields to the Teme. Turn right by the river and stay close to it at a junction. Eventually, the path turns right and returns to the lane.

Turn left and keep straight on at a junction.

3 Pass Dean Meadow, cross a brook and then take an unsigned bridleway on the right.

Walk uphill to Newhouse Farm and turn right past the farm buildings, beyond which the bridleway remains well-defined.

Eventually, after passing through woodland, it turns left through a pasture. Go through the right-hand gate at the far side and through a garden to a bridleway junction at another gate. Bear right, and soon go right again, into a cherry orchard. Turn left at an unsigned junction. Keep straight on when you meet an access track. Walk up to a junction and turn left past the Old School House and left again at Rosedene.

4 Turn right at Highwood then take the second path on the left, which is hard to find. A short distance after passing The Bine you’ll see an old barn and if you proceed for another 10 metres you’ll find a gate hidden deep in a hedge. You’ll have to almost crawl under a low-growing hawthorn, and then wade through nettles.

Having made it into a field, walk straight across it and turn right along the edge. Continue along the edge of the next field to meet a track at the far side. There are trees and nettles in front of you, which conceal a gate – it’s a few paces to the left. Once you’ve spotted it you’ll have to fight through the nettles to reach it.

Take care because the nettles conceal fallen trees. Go across a cornfield, through a gap to another field and turn left on an unsigned bridleway. Turn right after going through another hedge gap, on another unsigned bridleway.

Follow it to the B4204 and the Tally Ho pub.

5 Take a footpath to the right of the pub. Cross a small field then descend through a large one, bearing away from the edge to pass a solitary oak tree, then continuing in the same direction uphill, towards the bottom corner of a hedge running down from a house.

Meeting the hedge, follow it to the field corner and then go diagonally left in the next field to the far bottom corner. Descend to a track and turn left to Hanley Child. Turn right along an access track, walking past Court Farm and ignoring branching paths. Turn right at a junction by a post box, ignore a path branching right and turn left after Town Farm.

6 Take a footpath on the right.

Walk along the edge of a pasture then descend through an orchard to the foundations of a new building, at which point you’ll be able to see your way to a lane.

Cross to a footpath almost opposite and keep to the left through two fields. Turn right in the far left corner of the second one and return to the lane. Turn left and keep straight on at a junction, soon joining a permissive path. Turn right on a bridleway at the next junction, then soon left. The bridleway is easily followed to the B4204. Turn right.

7 Take a footpath on the left, walking along a field edge, across a track and through a potato field to another track. Turn right, returning to the B4204. Turn right, then left along a lane. Go straight on along a footpath when the lane bends. Walk through the yard at Hill Farm to a pair of gates and go through the one on the left.

Keep straight on along a field edge, ignoring branching paths. Leave the field at a wobbly stile in the far right corner and go left to meet a brook. Follow it to a footbridge, cross the brook and turn right through an orchard. Climb over a fence near a blocked stile and follow the edge of a large field, with woodland on your right.

8 Approaching the far end of the field look for a way through the trees to a footbridge. Cross and turn left through a garden, beside Kyre Brook, then climb steps to join an access track. Follow it to a stile then cross an orchard. Turn right, then left at Greenfields. Pass farm buildings and turn right, following waymarks to the B4204.

Turn left on a track, follow it to a junction and turn left to cross Kyre Brook on stepping stones. Walk to the main road and turn right into Tenbury.