(A) The River Teme laps through a peaceful countryside of orchards and hopyards, among which sits the picturesque town of Tenbury Wells. Yet it’s not apples or pears for which Tenbury is famous, but mistletoe. For over a century, every year in early December mistletoe markets are held. In fact, much of the ancient druids’ favourite berry that’s sold in Britain comes from this area. The town took a brief bathe in the limelight as a medicinal spa in Victorian times, and the eye-catching pagoda-style pump room tower still stands behind The Crow Inn.
[1] From the oval market hall in the town centre, head along Cross Street with the supermarket on your right. Turn right along Berrington Road, passing the Police Station. Pass Bog Lane to your left and rise for 120m to ‘The Bednalls’ house on the right. Use the iron kissing-gate to an enclosed path, bending left behind long gardens before emerging into a haymeadow, followed by a long orchard of venerable pear and apple trees. At the far corner stile, take the path above the woods before dropping steeply through them to find a gate into pasture. Now skim the edge of woods on your left, eventually joining a woodland track to reach a lane.
[2] Turn right over the bridge; then right over the nearby waymarked stile. Drift left across the flank of the meadow to a higher stile onto a surfaced track, which skirts the right-edge of a massive fruit-tree nursery. Persevere along the fringe of polytunnels and greenhouses, and in 200m look for the footpath fingerpost pointing the way left to a lane.
[3] Turn right and in 150m go left down the ‘No Through Road’, dropping into the narrow valley of Cadmore Brook to reach secluded cottages. Look carefully on your right for a stile into the trees (not the cottage-side track) and cut the overgrown corner of these woods to a higher stile into a field. Trace the left edge of the immature orchards.
There are great views north to the ridge of the Clee Hills, capped by the radome on Titterstone Clee.
At the minor road, turn left and follow this for over 1km.
[4] Turn left onto the waymarked bridleway beside a bungalow. Waymarks take this beside a barn into an old orchard, then past a tin barn on your left before easing right to the far corner. From here, the bridleway discs guide you down to a footbridge over the brook. Cross it, turn right and filter into a wider path, passing to the left of a pond, before looping right beyond a spinney and continuing to a grassy fork 100m beyond a bridlegate. Go left up the green track, which becomes a farm road and meets a lane, where you turn right.
[5] Opposite St Michael’s College, go left onto the main road. At the immense common, walk parallel to the main road to reach Oldwood hamlet. The way is right, a tarred lane/bridleway by white cottages. Take the wide gate to the left of a cattle grid, passing beside a barn then ahead through a series of gates, aiming left of distant oast-houses to reach a farm lane beside a lone house. Turn left to a junction.
[6] Go ahead along the tarred lane, dropping to the outskirts of Tenbury. At the T-junction, go right and fork left down the tarred drive 120m past ‘Mill Meadow’. Cross the bridge and use the metal-barred stile immediately left, heading for the far top corner of the pasture. Remain at the top of the field beyond the stile here and turn left at the end of the field. Cross the stepping stones and rise to the Pembroke House pub. Turn right here to bring you back to the start point in Tenbury.