The Clent Hills with Pat and Paul

The Clent Hills are an oasis just outside Birmingham. I'd never been before, and was really glad to get there to climb 2 hills with my aunt and uncle, Pat and Paul. We were joined by my mom and dad, my brother, and, of course, Monty the dog! First of all, credit where credit is due, I found this walk on the Walking Britain website, where you can find it as walk number 2716, or just click here. It turned out that Pat and Paul had done this walk before, so there was no chance of us getting lost! We picked a fantastic day to walk, with glorious sunshine. We parked at the NT car park described on the website, and ate our picnic lunch before setting off. We particularly enjoyed the rhubarb polenta cake that we had made with a cup of tea!

You start the walk by turning your back on the hill right next to you, and setting off in the opposite direction. By crossing various fields, you find yourself at St Kenelm's church. Nipping behind the church you can check out the source of the River Stour (aka muddy hollow) and there is a small poetry trail about Kenelm, who was a Prince of Mercia, apparently murdered at this spot in the ninth century. Some legends have it that the water first sprung up at the moment that Kenelm was killed...

After leaving the church we started our first climb. Initially through a field of peas, then into woodland beyond, we eventually found ourselves at the trig point of:

Walton Hill with Pat

This was actually the highest point of the walk, and gave the best views looking South and East. The Lickey Hills seemed just a stone's throw away, with the Malverns further South. Walton Hill is an area of common land, now owned by the National trust, as was most of the area we walked today. We could see across the valley to our next hill, and could equally see we had to descend into the valley first before another climb!

This we obviously then did, dropping down to the village of Clent with it's church. We quickly entered woodland criss-crossed by many paths. The directions from the website were excellent, and kept us going in the right direction. We eventually cleared the woods to find ourselves atop:

Clent Hill with Paul

We first stopped to look at the toposcope, giving us great views all round to hills on the horizon. On a clear day you can,apparently, see the Berwyns, which was my first hill last year with Jamie. Leaving the toposcope we headed further uphill where the summit is marked by 4 standing stones. It would be nice to believe that they were pre-historic, like Stone-Henge, but I'm afraid they are not. Lord Lyttelton of Hagley hall had a number of follies erected in the 1750s, and these stones were one of them. I still prefer to think of them as some kind of neolithic monument...

From the top it was an easy matter to find our way back down again through the woods to the car.

Once again, a great day out. fab company, and 2 great hills. By my calculation, that just leaves one to go...