SOMETIMES when you’re gazing across at the Malvern Hills, it’s a job to remember which one is which. The best known, if not the highest, is British Camp. When Edward Elgar gazed across at it, he placed Caractacus up there in the cantata of that name. The British chieftain may well have been up there at some time but his last stand against the Romans, according to the historian Tacitus, was on a hill with a raging river running past it; so it was probably somewhere else.

This month’s easy stroll starts at Hanley Swan, 14th “Best Village in the North” in a March 2016 list drawn up by The Times. Halfway round there’s a good view of the full range of the Malverns. The southerly hills, from left to right are: Chase End and Raggedstone. Between them, where three counties meet is Whiteleaved Oak. A little mystique has been added by author John Michell suggesting the hamlet is at the centre of an alignment he calls the “Circle of Perpetual Choirs”; it’s equidistant from Glastonbury and Stonehenge. The theory was taken up by Phil Rickman for his novel The Remains of an Altar.

The next hills are the old Iron Age settlement of Midsummer Hill, now quite heavily wooded, Swinyard, favoured by hang gliders, and Hangman’s Hill where poachers caught hunting in the Royal Forest paid the penalty. British Camp itself has the distinctively tiered top. I memorise this bit of the Malverns by saying “Chase the ragged, meddling swine to the hangman’s camp.” Just an idea!

Beyond British Camp, come Black Hill above the Malvern Hills Hotel, the bare top of Pinnacle, Jubilee and Perseverance Hills; if you look back from Stable Farm on our walk, there’s a good perspective of the Wyche Cutting. Wych is the old English word for salt and the cutting on a geological fault through the hills was part of a pack horse track used for transporting salt from Droitwich. The track ran from the Rhydd Ferry, a very old ford across the Severn on a route to the hill camps on the Malverns. It was a distributing point for river-borne coal and bricks for Malvern Wells and Great Malvern in the 19th century. At Wyche, it bisects Perseverance Hill and Worcestershire Beacon, carries on down The Purlieu across modern Brockhill Road, by Mathon and on to Bosbury. The Beacon is the highest in the range at 425 metres, leading on to Sugar Loaf, Table, North and End Hills at the Malvern end.

“In his black pinny for Jubilee, Percy may beckon you for a loaf on the table up north end”. Perhaps?

First time we came this way, we reached a “Beware of the bull” sign by a stile between points 3 and 4, where telegraph poles follow the public footpath across the middle of a wide pasture. We knew the sign wouldn’t be there just to stop us using the route, so we started tentatively sneaking across the field, eyeing possible bale out points as usual. No sign of a bull.

Very relaxed by the time we got to Highfield Farm, we strolled nonchalantly through a small gap only to be stopped in our tracks. About eight yards in front was the immoveable object of a large black bull. He was on “our” side of the fence and the way we scrambled back through the gap was with rather less decorum.

“Roger, what are you doing? You know you’re not supposed to go there, so come on be a good boy”.

With that, the lady led the disgruntled beast back through the hole he’d carved in the fence to get at berries overhanging the bridle path. Smiling at apt names and Roger’s resigned trudge back to his pen, we carried on along the pleasant avenue between the trees at Wood Street. An amusing distraction on an untrammelled walk.

Hanley Swan and Wood Street 3½ mile easy walk. 6 stiles, 5 footbridges.

Village with green and duck-pond, pasture, wooded bridle path. Views to Malverns.

Map: OS 190, Malverns and Bredon Hill.

The Route 1. With your back to the Swan Village Inn and Kitchen, facing the Village Green, TL along the slip road passing Greenways. Join the pavement along the road to Upton. At the old roadside sign on the ground, which says Hanley, Upton 3, Malvern 5, TL along the surfaced footpath. Go along shady hedge-lined lane through galvanized kissing-gate. Keep ahead along the L tree-lined edge of very long pasture.

2. Footbridge. Cross in L corner, narrow field, k-gate ahead. Halfway across field, TL through walkers’ gate and immediately R along R edge. Views open out to Worcestershire Beacon. At the end of the field, cross the gated footbridge on to the road at Tickeridge Farm. Cross road and kink R through k-gate. Keep ahead along L edge/hedge of pasture, cross stile and keep ahead over gated bridge. Go straight across arable field, over stile on to road opposite Staining House. TL and follow R verge as far as the Hanley Swan sign.

3. Footpath leaving road. TR over stile into field along signed footpath. Follow L edge to stile, cross and follow the telegraph poles across pasture. Cross stile into next pasture, f/bridge and go gently up R edge of crop field. Cross f/bridge on to country lane. TL for 40 metres, then fork L along bridleway.

4. Highfield Organic Farm. Kink R through the gap along Wood Street bridle path. Follow the lovely wide tree-lined grassy track to a little plateau at a path junction. (If you go forward a few paces, there’s a good view of the Malverns from just the other side of the right stile). But, TL over 3 plank bridge, through k-gate. Cross the gallop, go through k-gate and follow the walk’s only gradient down the L edge. Go through gap and up L fence of long crop field. Go over stile by barn.

5. Stable Farm with bell and clock tower. Carry on ahead up the surfaced road. Pass Home Farm and Stables. Now follow the surfaced path of Park Lane all the way back to the duck pond at Hanley Swan, by Hanley & District British Legion Club.