Cleobury Country Walks: Walk 4 – PaperMills Round

Walk directions

1. Start

   From the Church, cross the road opposite the pharmacy. Turn left and cross Lion Lane to THE WELLS.

2. Step 2

   Go right passing the pond and left of the Old Pumphouse. Walk alongside a brook on your left to turn right at a lane. Turn left along the lane at the next junction and continue to the medical centre.

3. Step 3

   Turn left up to a main road. Turn right along the pavement for a few minutes and cross the road before the bridge over the River Rea. Continue over the bridge and immediately left onto a footpath along the river.

4. Step 4

   Continue through two gates, with PAPERMILLS COTTAGES on the right. Ignore 1st footbridge and continue keeping river on your left, passing the ruins of the papermills at the old weir, to WALFORDS BRIDGE.

5. Step 5

   Cross the river via the footbridge, left and then right at the lane uphill to a stile on the left.

6. Step 6

   For the longer route only:

   Continue on the road uphill for another five minutes. At the top go left down a track marked as a footpath. Pass a house over a stile and downhill ,then over a footbridge and steeply up to a tarmac road. Continue to step 7.

   For the shorter route only:

   Cross the stile, keep the field edge on your right to go over a stile in the far corner. Go past Cleanlyseat Farm on your right downhill to a footbridge. Cross the bridge, bear left up a steep slope and steps. Continue forward uphill passing a large oak in the middle of the field to the top right hand corner of the field.

7. Step 7

   Turn left into a caravan park, take the right fork and then turn right down a footpath beyond which there is no public access. Go across an estate road and through a gate into an open field. Turn immediately right and follow the hedgerow up hill to the top corner of the field to re-join the shorter route at step 8. (Alternatively, as this is a very steep path, you can zig zag up the hill
   to the same point).

8. Step 8

   Where both routes join again.

   Go forward down a footpath alongside the end of gardens, then follow the path across the school playing fields to the leisure centre car park. Here follow the road past Lacon Childe school to take a footpath on the right.

9. Step 9

   At the end of school buildings go left down a path to the main road. Cross the road and go left along the pavement then right at a crossroads (Tenbury Road). As the road bends right turn left down Eagle Lane.

10. Step 10

    At the bottom of the slope, where the lane goes left and uphill, go over stile and forward alongside gardens to a gate into Lion Lane. Go uphill back to the Church.