19/12/20 - Great Witley and Woodbury Hill

Distance - 5 Miles

Geocaches - 1

Walk Inspiration - 100 Walks in Hereford and Worcestershire, Walk 90.

This is the route that possibly got me into walking as a proper hobby.  I've completed it several times, but all in pre-blogging days.  Passing a Turkey Farm that has appeared on Rick Stein's Food Heros and a reindeer park provides the stimulus to resurrect it at Christmas.

In the olden, golden days of walking - before Tiers - this used to start at The Hundred House.  A magnificent coaching house that was too good to be a pub and changed into a nursing home (not a euphemism for Wetherspoons).  If you want a post-ramble drink now, you'll have to drive 4 miles to Dunley and stop at the Dog, where they proudly have a Bass Lamp outside but no Bass.

Fortunately, the parking area opposite remains to start the walk.  Down lanes, past the turkeys at Home Farm (none there this year, either avian flu or covid has got them) and the first climb of the day, a stiff muddy ascent of Woodbury Hill.

We don't laugh at Mrs M when she falls in the mud.  We do hope the views from the Worcestershire Way make up for her soggy bottom.

She made me delete the other photo

We have our 4th year University Student at home with us, as he pays £9k per year to watch zoom calls from my conservatory.  He comes up with a way of avoiding further mishaps, although exclaims that he looks like f***ing Gandalf.

A pair of Gandalfs

Its a long stretch of ridge walking to Walsgrove Hill, which has a descent so perilous it makes the cover of 100 Walks in Herefordshire and Worcestershire.  I never thought I would take unitary counties so seriously, but aren't Herefordshire in Tier 1?  I may campaign for the two to be re-combined, as was Ted Heath's desire.

Walsgrove Hill - aim for the clock tower

The Worcestershire Way is none too shabby as it continues its ridge theme through the grounds of Abberley School, passing the clock tower that can be seen from all over, with reindeer grazing in the fields below.

In normal conditions, the walk would add in Abberley Hill but there is a pedestrian footpath escape route along the A443 for those that have had enough of slopping up and down hills in the mud.