Day 15: Bishampton to Worcestershire Parkway 7 miles

There is a spectacular view from our breakfast table across the farm where we are staying to the Malvern Hills. There are evidently footpaths across the farm, though we are not going to use them, and the proprietor tells us that the council is very diligent about the paths and even provides the galvanised steel gates. This explains the welcome absence of deathtrap stiles here.

We step out, wet sunhats on heads, and it is not yet too hot, but there is not a cloud in the sky. We pick up lunch at the excellent village shop. Even though it’s a short day today, we’ve had previous experience of poor GWR lunch provision.

We have decided to go to Worcestershire Parkway station, rather than Worcester itself, for two reasons. Firstly, it’s going to be 33 degrees plus again in the shade, which slows us down considerably in the afternoons, and also the few miles from the station into the city will form a satisfying start to the next stage when we will have spent most of the day on a train. Also, this way we should be back in good time for the football. Richard, pessimist that he is when it comes to sport, didn’t think England would reach the quarterfinals.

This is a beautiful route through fields of cornflowers with exciting views up ahead of the next stage. It is very hot, however, and we stop to drink the extra 500mL bottles of water that the B&B have given us, early in the day while they’re still a bit cold.

As we turn a corner, Richard surprises a young fawn on the path. It stares at us for some time, but turns and skips off into a cornfield as soon as I lift up my phone to take a picture. It was still a lovely, intimate moment.

We reach an unclassified road and follow it to a ford, which we expect to be almost dry. Instead, it is quite deep and we are grateful for the robust footbridge across.

The road leads us to cross the B4082 and back onto another footpath. This then takes us past some friendly ponies into the village of Peopleton.

Here, we head towards St Nicholas’s Church to take our morning break. The church displays a mixture of architectural styles externally but is grade II* listed, presumably because of some of the carvings and treasures inside. The churchyard is a peaceful haven. There are welcome signs, bat boxes on yew trees, a shady bench and a toilet complete with disabled adaptations, a changing mat, pictures and fresh flowers. We’ve chosen a fitting place for our last rest stop.

We leave Peopleton by a track and are having some difficulty locating the footpath in a field of barley when the farmer comes up to explain/apologise for the fact it’s a bit overgrown. We’ve definitely seen worse, but we take his advice to walk down the farm track instead and follow the what sounds like the damson road to the gate. He also mentions there’s a path to the abbey, but there is no abbey marked on the map. It’s a bit rough in places, and Rich disturbs another young deer who was sleeping in the long grass, but we reach and cross the A44 and B4084 to join the Millennium Way again.

We only follow this for a short while before we take another path that leads us into a field comprising almost entirely of thistles. They’re not in straight rows, so can’t be being cultivated, but it’s odd how this one species is flourishing here. It’s also painful.

We emerge from the thistle ‘plantation’ to reach Mucknell Abbey, a small Benedictine community of monks and nuns. Their May update discusses the struggles of black habits in hot weather. I don’t know what they’re going to say in the July one.

We now have the option of a rather contrived footpath route to the station or just following the road. We choose the latter, rather fortunately, as the London Paddington train is three minutes late and we just catch it.

Reflecting on this first half of the HoStwalk, I’m struck by the fact that we’ve struggled with sore skin and over heating but, apart from the first couple of days, have had no muscle aches. The unremitting, intense weather has been as much of a feature of this walk as the countryside.

The sun has accompanied us across the weird, harsh features of the Fens, trailed us on the Northamptonshire Uplands and dogged us in the glorious, rolling landscape of the Avon Valley and East Midlands. We’ve slept on hillsides, enjoyed the theatre and used two brilliant launderettes, all the time receiving warm welcomes wherever we went.

I will miss the red kites wheeling through the skies in the morning, the clouds of butterflies we disturbed as we walked along, the hares, snakes and deer and the screeching of the swifts every evening scything through the insect-filled air.

But the hills of the next stage are calling. They’ve been ahead of us all day enticing us onward. I can’t wait for the next time.

Total distance: 188 miles

PS, I think some of Rich’s mileage estimates might be a bit conservative, or maybe it’s the heat made it seem further……