Take steps to enjoy a water cure for excess

What's the saying? A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country. Meaning people will appreciate things from far afield, but ignore those on their own doorstep.

Well, 2005 ought to be the year when you discover what's in your backyard.

If the landscape can inspire Sir Edward Elgar to soul stirring epics like Land of Hope and Glory and I Vow to Thee my Country, it must be something special.

In fact, how about a Worcestershire-Herefordshire anthem Land of Hop and Orchard? Perhaps not.

Anyway, just for starters there is a new guide out to what might reasonably be called the epicentre of the two counties, the area around Malvern that became famous in Victorian times as the place to go for the "water cure".

Visitors descended from all over the country and even abroad to "take the waters", which emerged from a series of springs and wells sprinkled across the Malvern Hills.

The water was reputed to have therapeutic qualities because of its low mineral content, due to the hard granite rock of the hills not dissolving as it percolated through.

Whatever the reason, the Water Cure transformed Malvern. It turned a small hillside resort town, best known for fresh air and stunning views, into a mecca and fostered an industry that is still evident today, more than 100 years after its popular demise.

People continue to journey to the area now to fill containers with the water that bursts out of the hillside, but in modest numbers.

The "magic elixir" bubble burst around 1905, after a typhoid scare at the town's hydropathic centre coupled with cheaper foreign travel, which meant the more affluent who would have visited Malvern could go abroad for their health.

Advances in medicine played a part too.

But all this left behind a fascinating infrastructure, which is featured in a new guide to the area by two well-known local names. Cora Weaver and Bruce Osborne have been memorably described by one of my colleagues on our sister paper in the town as "historians and archivists of Malvern's spa past".

The aim of The Great Malvern Water Trail, as their fold-out guide is called, is to be both educational and recreational.

In other words you can learn something while at the same time fighting the flab brought on by seasonal excesses over the festive period.

Getting out and about in the healthy Malvern air will do you a world of good and help you appreciate why this part of the world is so special.

There is a main map and individual descriptions, most with photographs, of the locations that helped make Malvern famous.

From some there are stunning views across the Worcestershire Vale towards the Cotswolds, while others are more in the town centre.

Likewise some will be very familiar to most folk, such as St Ann's Well, Great Malvern Railway Station and Priory Gatehouse - but there are a few less well known.

Such as the Happy Valley Spring, which was turned into a drinking trough in 1904 for the donkeys that used to carry people up to St Ann's Well or the Worcestershire Beacon.

In the middle of the 19th Century there were about 50 donkeys at work on the Hills and they were a common sight until the Second World War.

Sometimes they would carry invalids who had visited the town for the water cure, but they also gave lifts to the able-bodied who were too lazy to make the climb for themselves. Which rather defeated the object of fresh air and exercise.

Another interesting location is the old Burrows Bottling Works at the back of the courtyard off Belle Vue Terrace.

Now a pine furniture premises, it once housed the business of Walter Becker and John Severn Burrows.

They bottled St Ann's Well water, which was collected in two 14,000 gallon tanks lined with white glazed bricks. These stand in the gardens at the rear of the Crown Hotel.

In 1882, Burrows won the only prize awarded to English mineral water bottlers at the International Water Festival at Frankfurt and the firm held royal warrants too. Sadly, it closed in 1950.

One of the most obscure sites is at the rear of the present Baptist church, where you will find Hay Well spring which, at one time, piped water to Malvern Priory for the use of the monks.

It was among the town's foremost attractions, surrounded by ornamental gardens and with its own elegantly fitted baths. However, closure came in the late 1800s and the church was built on the land in 1893.

All that remains now is contained within a small brick structure partially covered by brambles and ivy. A sad end to one of the water cure's focal points.

"Following the water trail is a great way to over indulge in fresh air, learn about Malvern's history and lose a few unwanted pounds you might have put on over Christmas," said Cora Weaver.

So make it a New Year's resolution to appreciate the local scenery in 2005.