Hadley Droitwich Circular

(S/E) From Hadley Bowling Green Inn, Hadley Heath, Droitwich, WR9 0AR, turn left out of the car park. Continue down the hill. Take the first footpath on the left by a white house. Shortly on the right you will see a marker post. (This is sometimes partly obscured).

Turn right down a steep and often very overgrown footpath, go left and follow the hedge. Go through a kissing gate and bear left up a bank to the ridge. From here carry straight on following an ill defined path towards the pylons and wood to a bridge with two stiles across the River Salwarpe. Cross the river Salwarpe. (Beware it can be muddy and wet in this area).

Once across the river Salwarpe, head for a gate in the woodland ahead. Go through the woods, you will see a gate but ignore it and turn onto the canal towpath, where you turn left alongside the Barge Canal until you reach St Michael's Church, which you can visit. After the visit, return to the towpath. The barge Canal was restored for your pleasure between 1970 and 2011.

(1) Keep the canal on your right all the way to Droitwich Leisure Centre. On your right over the canal is the beautiful Salwarpe Court. On your left is Coney Meadow.

(2) The turning into the Leisure Centre is just under the bridge. Don't miss it or you will be in Droitwich! Walk through the car park and exit onto Briar Mill. Turn right and very quickly pass Droitwich High School on your left. Cross the road bridge and turn left at the island onto Westwood Way. After approx. 50 metres at a road junction, look to your right then cross the road and follow the fingerpost down a path to the left of the allotments through the woods.

(3) Go through the kissing gate and follow the fence line on the left to the kissing gate onto the main drive. Cross the main drive and proceed across the large field in the same direction. (Normally this path is well defined other than just after ploughing). Continue straight on with The Great Pool on your left and Westwood House on your right. After passing the house continue towards woodland. As you cross the field look to your left, and if it's a clear day you'll see the Malvem Hills.

(4) On reaching the Nunnery Wood, go through a metal kissing gate and turn left along the path to the side of the wood. The path coming in on the right is the continuation of Monarchs Way, part of a 630 mile walk!

(5) After descending some steep steps in the path and crossing Hadley Brook where there is a very picturesque property on the left, you find yourself in the hamlet of Hadley. Continue along the road/track until you reach a junction. Turn left here. The road begins to improve as you continue to the next T-junction. Turn right and this will take you to the main road A4133.

(6) Turn right and cross the road. Don't take the lane which is signposted to Hadley Bowling Green Inn, but continue for a few paces and follow the footpath signpost, taking the track on the left. On reaching the boundary of a property, there is a way-marked gap in the fence. Go through the gap, keeping the property wall on your right. The path continues to some woodland on the right. Keeping the woodland on the right, continue past the field boundary, taking the farm track to a second field boundary at the far edge of the woodland.

(7) Turn left here heading towards some more woodland. On reaching the woodland, turn left following it for a few paces. The trail then heads across the field towards. Keeping a tree in the field on the right, follow this trail until it reaches the road by two old trees. (Alternatively if the path cannot be discerned due to crops, follow the field edge keeping the woodland on the right, until the edge of the field is reached by a gate. Turn left here, following the field hedge to the road.)

(8) Turn right here onto the road. Once past May Tree Cottages, look out for a stile on the left onto the next footpath. After a short distance, climb a stile on the right and take a footpath diagonally towards the Hadley Bowling Green pub. Climb another stile and cross a field before emerging through a gate onto the road. Turn left back into Hadley Bowling Green car park (S/E).

(S/E) Hadley Bowling Green Inn has one of the oldest Crown bowling greens in the country. This stunning Grade 2 listed Elizabethan Inn makes a perfect start and finish point. Historically one of the locations where the Gun Powder Plot was hatched.

(1) You may wish to divert to St Michael's Church Salwarpe, a lovely medieval church set in a conservation area, close to the River Salwarpe and the canal. It is a surprisingly large church for such a small hamlet (no doubt due to its proximity to Salwarpe Court, which has connections to King Harold and Warwick the Kingmaker). If the weather is good and you have plenty of time, you may also wish to divert to the bird hide.

(2) Droitwich Leisure Centre.

(3) Westwood House was originally erected early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I by Sir John (Lusty) Pakington and subsequently altered and extended throughout the centuries. The Pakingtons owned the property until 1900.

The exact site of the nunnery at Nunnery Wood is unknown, but is supposed to be in the present kitchen garden. Pilgrims from this nunnery travelled as far as Fontevraud Abbey near the river Loire in France. As you approach the wood, you may see in the distance the hills of Abberley and Woodbury, with the very distinctive Abberley Clock Tower 8 miles in the distance.

Hadley Village. The path takes you past a picturesque cottage with a rustic bridge over Hadley Brook.