Visited 5.8.2017.
Three and a bit years on since my last visit, which was a claggy Easter day with visibility truncated by hazy mistiness. No such problems today, a rolling front of thunder has pushed its way up from the Black Mountains across Herefordshire, and the skies are clear and views are long in its wake.
No plan, just an entirely spontaneous diversion, jumping off a train at Hereford and catching a bus at Ledbury to emerge at the foot of the hill as the rain carries on to soak Worcester.
I decide to follow the lower rampart round the west side of the fort, which gives a great view of the ranks of earthworks climbing the flanks of the hillside, as well as beautiful unfolding panorama of Herefordshire. When I first came here in 2009, I hadn’t explored the Black Mountains, or Radnor Forest, and my memories of the Clee Hills were from my childhood. All of these are in clear view today, as well as the Cotswolds escarpment to the southeast, Bredon Hill to the east and the ridiculously ubiquitous May Hill to the south. Three English counties and quite a bit of Wales to admire then.
In the years since that first visit I have come to recognise these distant hills, and the Malverns ridge is the common landmark visible from where I grew up and where I live now. The fort itself overawed me when I first came, and this third visit does nothing to diminish the impression of what must be one of the finest hillforts in these islands. The presence of other visitors, tiny specks against the serried rows of banks and ditches, serves only to enhance the sense of wonder.
I spend an hour walking the perimeter and up to the top, before reluctantly deciding to continue my broken journey. The thunderheads have broken over Worcester, and magnificent rainbows over Bredon and Cleeve Hill will follow later. Sometimes England is really very lovely.
