Worcester to Hereford

 2nd May 2023

Although I was now on familiar ground, having lived in Hereford for almost 25 years, much had changed since I left the area twelve years ago. For a start, there are no longer any direct buses between Worcester and Hereford, despite them being less than thirty miles apart and until recently having enjoyed a regular connection by bus since the 1930s.

My only feasible route was via Great Malvern and Ledbury, which would mean missing out large chunks of both Worcestershire and Herefordshire, although I had traversed the northern part of Herefordshire on my previous trip Around the Edge of England.

So, on returning to Worcester by train on 2nd May I made my way to Crowngate Bus Station, now much quieter than it was when I used it frequently in the 1990s, to join First Bus service 44 to Great Malvern. The 44 is the surviving remnant of the once mighty 144 that linked Malvern Wells to Birmingham, every 15 minutes throughout the day and required double-deckers to cope with the loads. The 144 itself now reaches neither Malvern nor Birmingham but shuttles between Worcester and Catshill, just north of Bromsgrove, whilst to the south west, the 44 runs half-hourly to Great Malvern and undertakes a lengthy tour of the eastern suburbs before reaching the centre of that town.

The geography, hills and road layout of Great Malvern mean that buses have to follow convoluted routes, especially as there are very few places where a bus can turn round. The 44 therefore dropped me at the bottom of the town centre, leaving me with a steep uphill walk to the stop at Rose Bank Gardens for my next bus.

Service 675 arriving from Ledbury

Service 675 arrives from Ledbury in the direction one would expect, but because of the dificulty in turning a bus round in Great Malvern it then departs on its return journey in the same direction.

After heading away from Ledbury and back towards Worcester for a kilometre or so it then turns left and heads sharply uphill around the northern flank of the Malvern Hills before finally assuming a westerly trajectory in the direction of Ledbury.

This hilly route takes in North Malvern, West Malvern and Wyche Cutting, where it enters Herefordshire, before heading steeply downhill to Colwall.  Almost within sight of Ledbury it then heads off along a servies of narrow country lanes to serve the village of Wellington Heath before entering Ledbury unexpectedly from the west!  This lengthy diversion produced no passengers and also resulted in two near collisions with fast moving oncoming traffic, but I realised that I shouldn't complain as it was something I had instigated myself when I worked in Hereford and we needed to serve Wellington Heath after its own bus service became unviable and had to be withdrawn.

HEREFORDSHIRE: County Town - Hereford

A primarily agricultural county, famous for cattle and cider lying between the West Midlands and the Welsh border. The county town lies at its centre surrounded by a ring of much smaller market towns.  In 1974 it was forced into a union with neighbouring Worcestershire in one of the most unpopular measures of local government reform ever undertaken in England. The resultant "Hereford & Worcester" was never fully accepted by either party and the two counties  went their separate ways in 1998 to great relief all round.

Although I needed three buses to get from Worcester to Hereford where once one would have done, at least the connections were good and I was soon on my way west courtesy of DRM service 476.

This small, rural operator, based 25 km north in Bromyard has a reputation for a modern fleet and good service and didn't let me down on this occasion. The 476 follows the main Ledbury to Hereford road all the way and is consequently tightly-timed, but we did suffer some delay when we called in at the large secondary school in the village of Lugwardine, both from having to join the queue of parents' cars to enter and leave the site and also because, unusually, most of the children didn't have any form of pass and were buying tickets from the drive; those paying with their phones causing more delay than those paying cash!

When I came through Hereford on my Around the Edge of England trip in 2015 the city was hosting its annual May Fair, when travelling showmen take over the city centre for three days with a funfair. Co-incidentally, it was May Fair time again this year.

Abingdon to Worcester                                                                                     Hereford to Gloucester