Button Oak to Bewdley (8.5 miles) 07/12/22

Present; M.Sadler, D.Chambers, P.Cotterill, J.Hickling, R. Jones, H.Jones

Dave and myself travelled as planned on the 09:20 off Moor St. to Kidderminster with Phil joining en-route at Rowley Regis. At Kidderminster we met up with Jason and also Ros and Hugh who had arrived nice and early.

The bus journey went to plan and in fact the 'Diamond' geezer bus driver dropped us off about 100 mts closer to the walks start with one of the group rewarding his helpfulness by repositioning his side mirror with their rucksack whilst getting off.

To begin with we walked through Pound Coppice to avoid just over a quarter miles walk along a busy road which we then crossed over near to the rocket testing centre and into the Wyre forest.

The trail we followed through the forest was good with patches of mud in places that were easily swerved around. Crossing over a Brook we broke out into open fields spotting lots of deers whilst gradually climbing up to Kingswood farm where we re-entered the forest shortly after.

From my original reccy the plan was to descend through the forest to Dowles Brook but thinking it would be very muddy along that section we took a diversion in advance along a good trail rejoining the original route near a footbridge which we crossed.

On the otherside we climbed again a short distance to join the disused railway that linked the Severn Valley line with Woofferton, between Ludlow and Leominster. We followed this a short distance before following a parallel forest trail to avoid a lot of hard surface walking. The trail took us back over the old railway and down to Dowles Brook where we stopped for lunch on a handily situated fallen tree.

On the way once more we continued to follow the Brook through the forest stopping off briefly to look inside the preserved derelict Knowles mill and its markers near the top of the doorframe indicating previous massive floods, the most recent of which being in 2012.

After about a mile we again crossed over the busy road and followed the Brook to where it emptied into the Severn. From here we stopped briefly to view the impressive remaining bridge piers that once took the railway over the Severn. For the final mile we followed the river into Bewdley where we stopped for hot drinks and cake before catching the bus back to Kidderminster.

Although very cold it was fantastic weather for this walk with no wind and not a cloud seen all day which made the views in the forest spectacular.

Mark Sadler