Across the Hills: A Walk from Ledbury to Great Malvern

We'd been on a few long-ish walks recently with baby Molly in her new carrier and I really wanted to go for the big one and carry her from our home in Ledbury to Malvern. As hikes go, it's not that massive at 10 miles or so, but carrying a child that distance over the Malvern Hills along with all the stuff required to keep them alive could make some of those miles pretty grueling. Plus the fact I'm now 44 years old and not exactly an athlete. We've done the walk a few times before and the last time I was on my own having slept in a little tent in the dark woods along the way which made everyone think I was having some sort of midlife crisis. My camping kit weighs more than Molly and her carrier, but tents don't need a few stops for a feed or nappy change and you don't spend half your time making sure that your tent is comfortable and happy. When I'm on my own I can just plod along and concentrate on getting to where I want to go. Being a parent of a young kid on a long walk definitely adds to the challenge, but when they clearly enjoy it, it makes it so much more fulfilling. 

Molly is over 8 months old now and quite big for her age so it probably won't be that long before she's a bit too heavy to carry on the more lengthy hikes. You then have to wait until they are both capable of walking long distances and can be arsed to walk long distances. I reckon that could take up to 35 years for the latter, by which point I will be nearly 80 years old and almost certainly in both the incapable and "can't be arsed" categories, so we decided we may as well just get it done now while she was still relatively light. 

The weather forecast was pretty much perfect for the Sunday we planned to go. Sunny all day but temperatures reaching around 17 degrees, so not too hot and sweaty but with the bonus of it still being a really nice day. Sunday then arrived and the Met Office had been spot on with their predicted glorious sunshine. We got ourselves ready and left home in Ledbury for a long walk to Great Malvern train station over the hills. 

We went via Eastnor and had walked a circular route through there the previous weekend, so we knew this bit was OK with the extra weight of a baby. You enter the Conigree/Coneygree Wood on a path not far along the Worcester Road from Ledbury Police Station. There's a steady, winding uphill section through trees, but it isn't too tough a walk at all and the Conigree is lovely any time of year. Handily for anyone attempting this walk for the first time, the best path to take through the wood is is marked on Google Maps as a walking route. It follows the Geopark Way to Eastnor obelisk if you have an OS map of the area. If you don't have a paper map then you can view an Ordnance Survey map option on Bing Maps, which is a handy tip. Below is a screenshot of Ledbury and Eastnor with OS selected on Bing Maps. 

As you exit the woods, the path leads through a few fields with some decent views of the Malverns. Those views can be quite daunting when you see how far away your end destination looks though. 

Following the path through the fields, you arrive into Eastnor, past the church and to Eastnor Deer Park where there is now a cafe at the main entrance converted from an old wood shed. It is imaginatively called The Woodshed. There's some space inside that is sheltered from the rain, but it is still open on a couple of sides so not particularly warm on colder days. There was nothing there before though so it's a welcome addition. Eastnor Park is beautiful, so the extra parking they created for the cafe means it gets busy now, but once you are in the park there is more than enough space. 

The walk becomes difficult when you go through the park and then have to take the path up to the obelisk on the Malvern Hills. I was expecting that bit to be the worst part of the walk and I wasn't wrong. It was not fun, but it felt good to get up to the obelisk knowing that the rest of the climbs on our walk would be a lot more gradual. Molly has started making this sort of clicking noise with her mouth and tongue in response to us doing the same. It was quite funny that she started making this noise as I was carrying her along as it sounded a bit like a rider trying to get their horse going quicker (or donkey in my case). It did feel a little bit condescending when she was doing it up that steep path though and I'm now considering joining a union.

The day was getting brighter and the sunshine was quite warm, so we attached the sunshade to the baby carrier to give Molly some protection. It was just the job but kind of made it look like I was carrying a small beekeeper with me on the journey. On our previous walks, Molly had gone to sleep for long spells, but on this one she she was alert, smiling and looking around at the scenery. We were nearly 4 miles in and she seemed really happy, which was good because we were now nowhere near to anywhere with public transport back home. 

From Eastnor obelisk you enter a path through a large patch of woodland which takes you to the main ridge along the Malvern Hills. We found a spot to sit and have a break before we hit that main path. The downside with nice days on the Malverns is that they tend to bring a lot of people from the surrounding towns and cities. Lots of those people have dogs and our dogs don't really like other dogs, so trying to relax with them can be tricky in busy public areas. We were nicely tucked away though in a flat patch of grass amongst the trees before moving on to the main drag.

From here the hills are basically split into three sections where two roads between Herefordshire and Worcestershire pass through. The first section would take us to the Iron Age hill fort British Camp (the Herefordshire Beacon). I'd initially suggested that we should go to the top of both the Herefordshire Beacon and the Worcestershire Beacon, but the walk was getting quite tiring and it seemed a bit silly to risk getting totally knackered when we were now only about half way along the planned route. The scenery is still amazing along the paths that pass by it anyway. 

We decided to go for a pint at the Malvern Hills Hotel on the junction of the first road we'd cross on the hills just passed British Camp. That has a good outside area to sit and people watch while you rest up for a bit. It was absolutely rammed though so instead we briefly used the public toilets over the road and ploughed on towards the next pass at the Wyche cutting. We opted to continue along the hillside paths rather than over every peak. The first time we walked from Ledbury to Malvern, we went to the northern extent over North Hill and over the top of every hill along the way. That walk ended up being around 15 miles and was an absolute killer. Definitely worth it with a light load, but it would have been a bigger struggle this time. The side path between British Camp and the Wyche that runs alongside Jubilee Drive was a welcome relief anyway. It was shaded, relatively flat, pretty and quiet. 

On making it to the Wyche we stopped for another break, an ice cream and a baby feed/change on a quiet patch of grass. There are a couple of decent pubs close by (The Wyche and The Chase), but we were keen to just get the walk finished and then enjoy a drink in town. My wife Stace was getting a bit ratty by this point though because I insisted we needed to go up to the Worcestershire Beacon which is the highest point of the hills and she wanted to walk down the road from the Wyche to Great Malvern. I wanted this walk to be both enjoyable and a challenge though, so after a break she seemed a bit happier to just go for it. Well, she went from being annoyed to being a bit less annoyed.  

Time for the final uphill walk to the top of the Malverns. It's not particularly steep anywhere along this path from the Wyche cutting to the Worcestershire Beacon and is a good place to come and park to walk up and get the views without a massive amount of pain. The downside is that it is the busiest part of the hills and becomes infested with people when the weather is good. I can't complain as everyone else had as much right to be there as we did, but part of me is definitely a miserable local that hates outsiders, along with most insiders. 

So we made a slow, slightly tiring plod towards our highest point of the walk. My knees and calves were feeling it now, but we had about half an hour to go to the Beacon and then the remainder of the walk would be downhill with a decent pub at the bottom. Wonderful. Then one of our dogs Wilf decided he'd had enough of this sort of thing and just lay on the floor. He'd had plenty of water and been on lots of long walks before, but we'd gone 9 miles now and that seemed to be his breaking point. Stace carried him for a bit and thankfully he was OK to carry on from there. 

We finally reached the Worcestershire Beacon and it felt good. It wasn't the most testing of adventures to say the least, but we were still pretty tired. Even though we'd done this walk before, the beautiful scenery that we're lucky to have on our doorstep is worth appreciating as often as possible. Molly had been amazing the whole time and was smiling seeing lots of new things around her. It had been properly enjoyable journey that was absolutely worth the tired legs and demeaning clicking sounds from the 8 month old Queen on my back. 

The walk wasn't done though because unfortunately there is no zip wire from the top of the Malverns. The easiest route from the beacon down to Great Malvern is via St Ann's Well. There is a solid footpath down the hill and with our finish line in sight it was a nice plod down. We then checked the train times and realised we could get some food and have to wait nearly 3 hours for a train home or have a quick drink and catch a train from Great Malvern in about 50 minutes. We opted for the swift pint. Weavers is a cracking pub in Great Malvern that has a nice balance between having somewhat of a cool hipster vibe and somewhat of a traditional pub vibe. There is usually a good mix of people in there and it was a nice place to rest tired legs for a bit and enjoy a deserved beer. 

A 15 minute walk from there and we were at the station, then a 10 minute train journey to Ledbury followed by another 15 minute walk home and I could get my socks off and lean back into the sofa. A great day to end a great weekend. That will probably be the longest walk I ever do carrying our daughter and it was a proper joy to have done this with her, my wife and our dogs. Whether you go as a family, with friends or during some alone time, it's a wonderful walk that takes you through beautiful woodland and over scenic hills. 

From Ledbury train station to Great Malvern station the walk would be around 12-13 miles on the route we took. If you wanted a shorter walk between stations, there are some decent paths from Colwall to Malvern at around 5-6 miles via the Worcestershire Beacon. I much prefer walking the Malverns like that, rather than using a car park and going up and down the same way. If you want to attempt either and are looking for some advice on the routes, just let me know and I'll be happy to help.