A Meander in the Malverns II : Worcestershire Beacon and North Hill

Having glimpsed - but not climbed - the steepest street in England the week before last, we were now confronted with the second steepest - Old Wyche Road beween Lower Wyche and Upper Wyche, en route for the top of the Malvern Hills. We opted to drive to the pub in Upper Wyche instead.

Though the food's bog-standard, and a brick-coloured carpet with burgundy upholstery is always going to be challenging, the Wyche Inn serves Robinsons cider from Tenbury Wells and has amazing views, which make up for its shortcomings. 

With lunch weighing heavily on my digestive system, we headed up through the village, which straddles the border between Worcestershire and Herefordshire ... 

... taking, wherever possible, the road less travelled by, though there were people all over the place. This is no Dartmoor. 

Nor had we cut out all the climbing. Here is Summer Hill. 

Ravens over Herefordshire

Up ahead, Worcestershire Beacon, whence you can see - it is said - thirteen counties, three cathedrals and the Bristol Channel.

When we got there, we had a little sit down ... 

... and a scratch. 

I'd remembered the binoculars for once and the views were superb. 

Looking ahead to Ludlow and Wenlock Edge ... 

... over Great Malvern to Worcester, the magnificently named Lickey Hills and beyond there, somewhere, Birmingham ... 

...  to Bredon Hill and the Cotswolds ... 

... and to the Bristol Channel and Black Mountains of Wales.

In the middle distance our destination - North Hill. Sugar Loaf Hill, in front and to the left, wasn't on the route I'd printed off the internet, but there was a group of adolescent ravens mucking about above it so that was a good enough reason to detour. 

This is the view looking back at Worcestershire Beacon ...

... and ahead the wide col between Table Hill and North Hill. I'm supposed to be making for this, if I can get past the other one.   

On the wide col, I remembered that the purse I'd left in the car because I didn't need money out on the hills also contained my spare camera batteries. But once we'd knocked off both hills, we'd done it - the way back was via the undulating paths around their sides. 

And anyway, I still had my phone.  This is Great Malvern from North Hill. 

By now the sun was beginning to sink in the west, illuminating the trees dressed in their shifts of a thousand different greens. 

'C'mon, Deb, it's time to go home.'

A Meander in the Malverns I : Great Malvern Priory

The Malvern Hills surge out of the Severn floodplain and dominate the skyline to the south and west of Worcester. For me, being hauled south on the M5 by the westering pull of my homing magnet, they are Almost Home But Definitely Not; a piece of the southernmost Midlands more mysterious and mystical for being so near and yet far far away.  

Time, maybe, to make a first visit. 

First, though, a quick dap around Great Malvern Priory. And before that, coffee in a convenable spot. 

The bookshop is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Probably just as well. 

The priory has a 'larger display of 15th century stained glass than any church in England', we are told. This foxed me a bit at first, on account of Fairford Church in Gloucestershire's 'only complete set of 15th century stained glass in England'. Can you get bigger than complete? 

I suppose it all comes down to the size of the respective Churches. 

The glass survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries because townspeople managed to raise the huge sum of £20 to buy the Priory from the Crown. 

It survived the Cultural Revolution that was the Civil War because it was still surrounded by forest at this time and relatively isolated. 

It survived World War II because the windows were removed and stored in zinc-lined boxes in a mine in Wales. 

It didn't always survive the depredations of ivy. 

Great Malvern's mediaeval glass is impressive, but for reasons of exuberance and imagination and picturesque demons and devils, I prefer Fairford's. 

I fell in love with the modern, millennium windows, however, which were made by Thomas Denny and installed in 2003. 

Inspired by Psalm 36 they are imbued with nature and, for me, almost pagan in feel. 

The detail is exquisite ...

... and I loved the way the design merged with the surviving mediaeval glass in the uppermost lights.

But it wasn't just about the glass. I loved the mediaeval wall tiles too ... 

... the wildly glamorous eagle lectern, seemingly feathered with leaves ...

... the rather severe-looking daughter kneeling at the feet of John and Jane Knotsford, where one might have expected a small dog or pet lion ... 

... and the choir stall and misericord carvings.

  

Outside, the hills were making their presence felt. Time to get out on them ... 

Steart Marshes

When we got to the tip on Sunday morning to dump the stair carpet and underlay, the queue was half way down the road so we went for a meander at Steart Marshes instead. 

Warning signs have been a bit of a feature lately.  Steart Marshes, along with the rest of the Severn estuary, have their fair share of mud. 

Birds, too - but as usual, I'd forgotten the binoculars, and as usual, we had a barky dog with us.

This didn't stop the larks from battering our ear drums with their 'Git orf my land!'s. Or the shrieking pheasants in the reedbeds. Or even the raven flying past filled with silent purpose. 

The tide was too high to see the sunken forest that the noticeboard lays claim to.

Though perhaps this is part of it. 

What we did see, always on the horizon, was Hinkley Point nuclear power station, soon to be joined by Point C. The madness of building such a dangerous thing on an estuary with the third highest tidal rise and fall in the world. 

For one thing, there's all that renewable energy which could be tapped. 

For another, tsunamis. 

Looking in the opposite direction, the dark bulk of Brent Knoll, with the distinctive profile of Crook Peak behind it. 

And further along the coast Brean with Brean Down beyond it. 

While ahead lie Steep Holm, Flat Holm and South Wales. 

The blackthorn blossom's been amazing this spring. As striking as whitethorn. 

By now the tide was falling and we had to get home before the tip closed - where there was still a queue to get in. But we'd enough sun and sea to feel as if we'd been on a week's holiday, and that makes even waiting to dump carpet OK.

Hearses, Nurses and Curses of Affliction

Last Saturday there was an exhibition of Victorian medical photos of largely undiagnosed conditions at our local Victorian garden cemetery. A must see for my retired nurse friend, Cathy, and me. Or so we decided.

Upon our arrival at our designated parking spot, we stopped to enjoy the great views from the other, less familiar side of our home city, including the Clifton Suspension Bridge in the distance ... 

... and Vale Street, Totterdown, which is apparently the steepest residential road in the country. 

We didn't have to walk up it, however. Our route took us along here. 

First, we had a poke around in one of the crypts, where lots of redundant grave paraphernalia  had been stored. 

Outside, I learnt what Dru Marland's Morris Traveller wants to be when it grows up. 

There was also a Chevrolet with swagged curtains and a coronet of funerary bling in incredibly bad taste welded to the roof. 

This is the Reverend John Adey Pratt checking the shower is warm enough.  

Not Ted.

After a cup of tea and a shared slice of lemon drizzle cake in the sunny garden of the cemetery cafe, we finally came across the exhibition.

It was rather small, which was just as well, as I'm not sure how I feel about it, really. Of the ten photos on display, one or two people appeared to have conditions which would be easily rectified today - extensive varicose veins and webbed fingers. Another seemed to be suffering from hyperthyroidism.  

The rest were more difficult to contemplate. Obviously the subjects are all long dead, but looking at photos of them did feel prurient. I won't share them here.