Far Forest

(S/E) Start at ‘Wyre, Forest of Discovery’ car park. (Please check with Forestry Commission for opening times. Parking charges apply). Leave the car park and head onto the main road. Turn right and head up the road.

(1) After 500m take the bridleway on your right hand side. Continue on this bridleway through the forest until you meet another bridleway. Turn left onto the track for 250m.

(2) Turn right onto the public footpath and follow this for a further 400m. At the footpath junction, keep left and follow the forest track for approximately 500m until you come to a stream.

(3) Ford the stream and continue up the hill until you come to a driveway, follow this driveway until you meet a road.

(4) Cross the road and climb over the stile taking you into meadowland. Follow the hedge line and enter the next meadow. Look for the stile diagonally across the field accessing a road. Turn left and head up the road to the junction.

(5) At the junction turn right and follow the lane for 650m. Take the public footpath into the holiday park. After 450m you will reach a bridge that once spanned the Bewdley to Tenbury railway line.

(6) Cross the bridge and continue to the stile that will lead you down an enclosed track into woodland. Take the bridleway uphill, crossing the railway line again until you come to a road. Follow the road to the right, passing a residential building that was once the railway station at Far Forest.

(7) After a left hand bend in the road take the bridleway on your left, going through what was once a tunnel under the railway line. Continue for 400m.

(8) Leave the bridleway and follow the road to the left for 80m. Take the public footpath across the meadow to the stile taking you into a wood. Cross the stile and follow the footpath down to a stream. Continue up into the wood and through a metal kissing gate. Follow the footpath until you emerge onto the road via a large field gate.

(9) Turn left onto the road, stay on this road for approximately 500m until you come to a red metal stile. Cross this stile and follow the path for 300m until you reach Plough Lane.

(10) Go through the gate and turn left, in 400m you will be back at location (5) Now retrace your steps back to the start point. (S/E)

Start/Finish: Wyre, Forest of Discovery, Callow Hill. Grid. ref. SO 750740
Parking: Wyre, Forest Of Discovery. (Charges Apply)
Gates & Stiles: 3 Gates, 6 stiles
Terrain: Small section of Road Walking, woodland and arable fields.

Find out more on Worcestershire County Council here.

The Wyre Forest is the one of the largest ancient lowland oak woods in England. The 6000 acres, huge though they are, are all that remains of a forest that once stretched from Bridgnorth to Worcester.

First mentioned in the Domesday Book as the ‘Foresta de Wyre’, the Wyre Forest was thought to predate the Norman Conquest by at least 200 years.

Its history and its uses have been vast over the centuries and range from exclusive use as a royal hunting ground to being an important element in the pursuit of industrial growth by providing the charcoal needed to power the
furnaces of the industrial West Midlands.

The Far Forest Circular Walk guides visitors through areas of the Forest less trodden by the majority of day trippers and thus the opportunity to indulge in the oak woodlands outstanding beauty.