I'm planning to take the Cotswold & Malvern Line train from Oxford next trip since i have never been on it and seems interesting going thru bit of Cotswolds and small towns, etc. to Worcester and Great Malvern to Hereford.

Great Malvern has always intrigued me - an old spa i think - anyone is this a town to aim for on a day trip to get off the train for a few hours?

Opinions on Great Malvern please?

Is Hereford anymore than a usual big city with good cathedral - Worcester the same?

I know Ledbury is a great small town and i'd like to see it for a short spell along with Great Malvern, unless Great Malvern is ho-hum and more time in Ledbury, Hereford or Worcester is better instead?

And i do enjoy moving quick - i know i can't dwell much in one place on a day trip but that's my travel style.

thanks for any insights!

I'll top this for you.

In 1998 we stayed at Cottage in the Woods in the Malvern Hills. I remember taking a trail walk along a ridgeline and seeing what is quoted as "the longest view in England".

The autumn leaves were beautiful. I don't remember 'Great Malvern' per se, but did find it amusing that there was Upper Malvern, West Malvern, etc, you get the idea.

The line's got the most disappointingly named station anywhere. After all the Great Malverns and Moreton in Marshes, you get to Honeycombe, which you're sure has to be the Ur-English village. It's a naff spec-built housing estate.

Few other comments:

Hanborough (first station out of Oxford) has a bus museum (www.oxfordbusmuseum.org.uk) attached to the station

From there on, the walking (if you're up to it) is terrific. I'm always recommenmding 'From the Wye to the Thames', a set of walks based on each of the following stations, which let you either do crcular tours or walk from one station to the next the scenic way .

Pershore's tourist-free and surprisingly handsome. Evesham's not.

Great Malvern is supposed to be a terrific place to live (it claims to have the highest number of PhDs per head of any town in Britain, though I can't begin to imagine why). The station is one of the Great English Stations. Otherwise the town's handsome and hilly and has a terrific church. Gratifyingly light on Elgarmania, except during festivals (of which it has lots). Big on tearooms.

Worcester has the world's most beautiful cricket ground and a pretty good sprinkling of second-level elderly stuff worth pottering round. Gloucester's a crap town with a great cathedral: Worcester's an OK going on very nice really town with a great cathedral.

There's a cider cycle tour (www.ciderroute.co.uk/site/ciderCycling.html) round Ledbury and Hereford you ought to do. Ledbury's a bit too quaint for its own good IMH, but some people really, really like it. Sort of Cotswolds without the thatch or coach parties.

Hereford has got too many good buildings to be a crap town. But I can't say it's ever - apart from the cathedral - appealed to me that much. Nice countryside around though.

We really enjoyed both Malverns (fine churches), one with beautiful medieval tiles) and Hereford; the latter has an excellent museum in the cathedral.

We too stayed at the Cottage in the Wood; I wonder whether it's still there. We tried to go for a walk in the woods but gave up after being attacked by many, many flying insects.

Jean, that's amazing. I think I picked Cottage in the Woods from a magazine picture--long before websites were a common thing. It was our first floral chintz, fish and tomatoes at breakfast, etc, sort of English stay so I remember it well.

Sorry PalenQ, didn't mean to sidetrack your Malverns.

hoping,

I'll bet you saw the spread on The Cottage in the Wood in the then-beloved Gourmet magazine. That's what lured us too.

flanner - i deeply appreciate the time you took to give me a rundown of the whole line's stations. It seems i will need some days to do justice to it all

Actually Honeycombe perks my interest and its housing estate (in Cotswold Hills even!)

anyway thanks a bunch - now though i do not know where to head first.