17/09/26 - Craycombe House, Fladbury

Serendipity

The sort of strange coincidence that I love.

Five weeks ago, I had never heard of the author, Francis Brett Young. Yet there was enough motivation to join a Walkspace West Midlands group walk to find locations that were important to him and his haunted house novel, Cold Harbour.

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My latest Travels With Pevsner walk provided the usual high amount of inspiration. I could have walked to the Chateau Impney, one of the Wells (Tenbury/Malvern) or Ribbesford House but how could I ignore Craycombe House? 

The former home of Mr Young!

Craycombe House sits to the North of Fladbury - a charming village on the River Avon, with a mill, a couple of pubs and a doors open church. In planning, it remained a question of how close I could get to the house. A promising looking footpath sits in the woodland above the property. Another rambler - attempting to create a long-distance path in honour of Tolkien - states that the property does come into view.

On the Wychavon Way

Only one way to find out.

For transportation purposes, the walk starts at Cropthorne - with a handy stop on the X50.  A collection of thatched cottages and a firmly closed church.

The main street in Cropthorne

Cropthorne Church

Across the River Avon at Jubilee Bridge, through the village and across the golf course - homing in on the target. Somehow, I did manage to receive a personal tour of the church by the warden. On explaining my quest, he did say that the house is now owned by a banker, who likes his privacy. He's certainly let the trees grow to provide cover.

The Avon

Fladbury Signage - the Anchor Pub in the background

Banker's Privacy

I start to think my quest is going to end in failure. Yet perseverance at Machine Farm - where they have removed all PROW markers and let the hedges consume the stile - provides the required result.

There she is!

As good a view as I am going to get - short of knocking on the front door.

Success celebrated at the Anchor Pub - a solid looking locals pub, with outdoor seating on the village green. They keep excellent Wye Valley HPA.

Walk Details

Distance - 7 miles

Geocaches - 1

16/09/26 - Moseley Bog

Tolkien's Middle Earth

It was only a matter of time before the AZ City Walks took us exploring in the footsteps of one of Birmingham's more celebrated sons.

Yet there is still no blue plaque marking his childhood house.

5 Gracewell Cottages is now 264 Wake Green Road

Moseley Bog is closely associated with J.R.R. Tolkien’s childhood and is widely regarded as an inspiration for the Old Forest in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien moved to nearby Sarehole in 1896, aged four, with his mother and younger brother, and lived there until 1900; he later described his time in the area as among the happiest and most formative of his childhood. He explored the surrounding countryside extensively, including the woodland and former millpond of what is now Moseley Bog, which survived as a relatively wild area while much of the surrounding countryside was later built over. Birmingham City Council notes that Tolkien acknowledged the Bog as an inspiration for the ancient forests in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, while Birmingham Museums connects the wider Sarehole landscape, including Sarehole Mill, with his creation of Middle-earth.

A fair amount of country walking here - Moseley Bog is small, wild and fortunately covered with boardwalks to keep your feet dry. A long section along the River Cole passes a ford crossing and the ripe-for-anagramming Sarehole Mill. Terraced streets at school chucking out time are enough of a reminder that you are in the big city.

Over the boardwalk

Haunt

Sarehole Mill

If hairy-footed hobbits, bearded dwarves, lumbering Ents, or assorted orcs, elves and wizards aren't your thing, then maybe an unlikely collection of Grade II listed buildings are.

The Wyke Green Prefabs were built at the end of WWII to provide emergency housing. They were designed to last 10 years.

Unlike Tolkien's House, these get Council recognition

Prefabs Sprouting

Walk Details

Distance - 4 miles

Geocaches - 6

Walk Inspiration - AZ City Walks, Walk 14

Future Inspiration - The Shires Way, Long Distance Path

Previous Birmingham AZ Walks - Walk 1 & 2, Walk 3, Walk 4, Walk 5, Walk 6, Walk 7, Walk 8, Walk 9, Walk 10, Walk 11, Walk 12, Walk 13

14/09/26 - Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove

Ever get the feeling you've been (nearly) cheated?

A trip to Dorset would be lacking if it missed this classic coastal walk. Yet things conspired to defeat us. Meteorological conditions could not be helped. The British appetite for ripping off people could.

We drive past several fine looking parking spaces in West Lulworth to try the official car park at Lulwoth Cove. A whole 5 minute walk away. You've never seen a Seat do a 180 quicker than when its driver spots that 3 hours parking is £17.

Jesus H Christ. On a bike. Going downhill. Without brakes.

After the walk, we pop down to the cove for coffees. A 20 minute boat trip is £20 for adults and £15 for children. £70 for a family of four to be entertained for a whole third of an hour.

Padstow's £25 fish and chips may have lost its crown as "Britain's Worst Tourist Trap"

If you are lucky, or it's a Monday on a bleak day, then you should find street parking to commence the walk. We decided to do the high headland first, saving the highlights for the return. They is a good reason for this.

On Hambury Tout things, can only get better

And they do - as we get to the many lung-bursting ups and downs of the coast path, the gloom lifts. Camera phones out for the magnificent seascapes around every corner. Durdle Door Arch leads to Man O' War Cove and then Lulworth Cove.

Did I tell you how much the boat rides were?

Man O'War

Final drop to Lulwoth Cove. Ironically through the car park.

It's a walk that all Rambers should do. Just time it right to start in the right place. In the right weather.

Walk Details

Distance - 7.5 miles

Geocaches - 5

Walk Inspiration - AA 1001 Walks, Walk 102

13/09/26 - Portland Bill

Sheds, quarries a dolphin but mainly desolation

Portland Bill - the UK mainland's answer to Father Ted's Craggy Island, where they take the roads in for storage when the rain gets really bad.

Effectively, the tied island is one enormous quarry - providing the stone that built Britain, not least St Paul's Cathedral. The majority of buildings - apart from lighthouses - appear to be sheds. The South West corner is labelled "Lawnsheds".

We are walking the South tip - with a choice of a 4 or 7 miler. At the decision point, our Millennium generation kids declare they have had enough desolation for one day.

Pre-lighthouse marker

Windswept on Portland

Tombstoning on Portland

More quarrying

There is a cafe back at the lighthouse - excellent scones, where an impossible to photograph dolphin provides some excitement. For one of the party, the first one spotted in the wild.

Walk Details

Distance - 3.25 miles

Geocaches - 8

Walk Inspiration - Komoot

12/09/26 - Sutton Poyntz to Osmington

Unique White Horse

You've got until the end of the blog to guess what makes this memorial to George III, riding his horse Adonis, unique amongst the 16 figures carved into UK hills.

Hoping it's George's foot and not how Adonis was named

A Haven caravan holiday. There's something I never thought I would type. Arrive, painless check in, vague directions to find one tin-can in a field of 500 other tin-cans and spark up the GPS to check the lie of the land.

Built on the site of a Roman Temple. The old order changeth, yielding place to new. Once, the aristocracy were lounging in togas beside mosaic-festooned spa facilities, while the slaves got on with the actual work. Superseded by the next generation of slaves feeding endless two-pence pieces into cascade machines in the hope of winning a penny chew.

Today's walk is all about the White Horse. We climb the western side of the hill from pretty Sutton Poyntz - all thatched cottages and a gentle stream filling a duck pond next to a sturdy looking pub. Walk the ridge on what is marked on my aging OS Map as The South West Coast Path and then drop down to Osmington, without discovering what joys may be contained within. Some fine views of Portland Bill, which will tomorrow's walk.

On top of a White Horse

A simple walk, providing simple pleasures.

And the answer to the quiz? The only White Horse with a rider.

Walk Details

Distance - 5.5 miles

Walk Inspiration - AA 1001 Walks, Walk 113

Geocaches - 6

10/09/26 - Powick Hospital

Church, Civil War and the Madhouse

This month's History West Midlands Podcast is about Powick Hospital. Growing up in Worcestershire in the 70s, this was often referenced. Any odd behaviour, however mild, would be met with "You'll end up in Powick".

Interesting podcast. I had no idea of the scale or the fact that each authority was responsible for creating a "madhouse".

Powick Mental Hospital began life in 1852 as the Worcester City and County Pauper Lunatic Asylum, built as a direct consequence of the Lunacy Act and County Asylums Act of 1845. These Acts required counties and county boroughs to provide accommodation for paupers suffering from mental illness, rather than leaving them in workhouses or private madhouses. Worcester took a little persuading before finally agreeing to build its own institution at Powick, where the first patients arrived on 12 August 1852. Originally designed for around 200 patients, the asylum expanded considerably and eventually accommodated around 1,000. It later became Powick Mental Hospital and closed in 1989, with most of the complex subsequently demolished.

It would appear that a World In Action documentary in the sixties hastened its demise.  The images in this YT video are from that programme. 

A walk to determine if anything remains on the ground. This can be linked in to an investigation of St Peters and St Lawrence Church. No point going to the Medieval bridge. It's still awaiting repair, although (slow) progress is promised.

The Hospital

A little more research was completed. The Internet Archive, my new favourite resource for antiquated books, contains the annual reports from several years in the early 1900s. 

The next page details mortality rates, escapees and how they were captured.

The bus stop is called Hospital Lane. The site was redeveloped extensively for housing (what else) after the hospital's closure. A load of photos from the early nineties at Geograph, where we have a candidate for first "urban explorer".

In the right place

The early photos show a massive rambling complex of buildings. Only one remains, the central office block, which has been repurposed as flats and offices.

The Church and Pub

Nothing else medical to explore, I focus my attentions on the English Civil War. 

Powick found itself at the heart of the English Civil War on more than one occasion. In 1642, the first significant clash, the Battle of Powick Bridge, saw Royalist cavalry defeat a Parliamentarian force; nine years later, the village was again caught up in the Battle of Worcester, the final major battle of the war. The Red Lion, an early-17th-century building, is said to have been pressed into service as a hospital for wounded soldiers during the fighting. Meanwhile, the tower of St Peter and St Lawrence's Church provided the Royalists with a useful lookout, its elevated position giving a commanding view towards the bridge and surrounding countryside. Parliamentarian troops eventually fired on the tower to discourage its use, leaving the remarkable pockmarks and shot holes still visible in the stonework today. Archaeological research confirms Civil War musket and other shot in the vicinity, while studies of the tower suggest that at least some of the damage was caused by small-bore artillery rather than simply musket fire.

And I time things perfectly. Well sort of. The pub offers little hope - with midweek opening times at 3pm. The church is usually doors closed. But on a Thursday between 10am and midday, the volunteer ladies are doing a weekly clean and keen to allow a mooch around. Information boards on both the hospital and the war are on display.

Brick exterior of the pub covering up the original timber framing

Approach to Powick Church

Target practice on the south side of the tower

The Walk

A simple crossing of the Powick Hams, where I need to find elevated access to the Southern Relief Road to cross the Severn. Note to future self - as the map is unclear - an access road is available right next to the water. Then follow the river back into Worcester - spotting more Civil War information boards.

Worcester - ahead

Refreshment stop  - The Diglis Hotel

Walk Details

Distance - 7 miles

Geocaches - 1

Walk Inspiration - History WM Podcast

07/09/26 - Worcestershire Cakes and Ales - Stage 2 - British Camp to Upton-upon-Severn

Chasing our sheep, waving a machete, shouting "Meat"

The second stage of the Cakes and Ales book takes me across Castlemorton Common. A name that will be of significance to ravers, hippies and New Age Travellers of a certain age.

Castlemorton Common in Worcestershire became the unlikely epicentre of Britain’s early-1990s free-party movement when an estimated 20,000–40,000 people descended on the common over the late May Bank Holiday in 1992, following the police disruption of the Avon Free Festival. For almost a week, sound systems including Spiral Tribe and DiY provided a huge, largely uncontrolled outdoor rave of techno, acid house and free-party culture. The sheer scale of the event—and the intense media coverage and political alarm it generated—turned Castlemorton into a symbol of a supposedly lawless youth counterculture. It was not the sole cause of the government's subsequent crackdown, but it provided the perfect political pretext: the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 gave police extensive new powers against unlicensed raves and trespass, most notoriously defining a rave in terms of gatherings of 20 or more people where music was characterised by a “succession of repetitive beats”. The Act also strengthened trespass laws and targeted New Age Travellers, squatters and other forms of protest and direct action.

Last week, I watched a documentary film - Free Party:A Folk History. Ironically, paying a tax dodging, American multinational £4.49 for the pleasure. I am unsure this is what the creators would have wanted. It all came flooding back. The youth tribes that no longer exist or indeed have been replaced by anything new. Whereas we had distinct subcultures - which drugs and repetitive beats brought nicely together - today we have insular, morose kids that if they do go out, it is wearing massive headphones. Lost in both their and to our worlds.

The moral outrage seems rather quaint too. I can remember the nightly news updates. I can remember the politicians and the press in a tizz. And for personal impact, you cannot help but feel sorry for the lady in the above video at 3:15 minutes in. No one wants their livestock bothered by machete wielding carnivores. 

The Walk

The guide book ambitiously demands that you walk 15 miles, including five miles on the ups and downs of the Malvern Hills from Worcester Beacon to British Camp. This needs to be curtailed. A) I have walked it many times and B) there is a hard stop on the last bus home from Upton-on-Severn. A combination of buses and uber gets me to the British Camp Car Park for a compromise.

British Camp reservoir under grey skies

The hills are lost after Hangman's Hill, dropping down to the east and the rave site of the common. Castlemorton village providing a break from the bleak and sheep but even then, little to explore. The doors to the church firmly "doors locked". They may have had trouble in the past from dreadlocked crusties in paratrooper boots.

Barred from St Gregory's

I'll entertain myself with a Tump

The Tump

Flatlands - that saw plenty of Civil War action - through the grounds of Eastington Hall and before long, into Upton-upon-Severn.

Looking back across Castlemorton to the Malverns

There is plenty to admire from this small, yet historically important town. They run many and varied festivals over weekends - with a Country and Western event added in 2026 to the more established folk, blues and pop weekends that took place earlier in the year.

There are enough pubs - 8 - that I have had it down as a potential pub crawl location. This might need addressing - as the Kings Arms and the Star Inn offered no cask ale. 

Ye Olde Anchor Inn - the single Good Beer Guide recommendation - becomes a two pint stop.

Proper Job at the best pub in Upton

Walk Details

Distance - 11 miles

Geocaches - 7

Walk Inspiration - Stage 2 of the Worcester Cakes and Ales Trail

Previous Stages:

Stage 1 - Martley to Malvern

01/09/26 - Wenlock Edge, from Rushbury

18 Miles Long

I had no idea that Wenlock Edge went on for so far. I always assumed it was hill near Much Wenlock but having spent a week in the area, I can now confirm it is a 18 mile ridge, running straight and thin all the way to Craven Arms.

Today, we have a short but beautiful walk from Rushbury. There is little to report. Rushbury has no pub. The church is austere.

But the walking is fantastic - a gentle climb out of Apedale along the flanks of agricultural fields. A long section on the Jack Mytton Way - on the edge - and back down to the village.

All I can bring you are the photos;

Wenlock Edge behind the trees

Apedale

Jack Mytton Signpost

The Wrekin in the far distant

Rushbury Church - an austere interior

This is our last day in Shropshire. Next week, I hope to bring you pubs.

Walk Details

Distance - 3.75 miles

Geocaches - 1

Walk Inspiration - 40 Walks in the Welsh Marches, Walk 8