HOW To Walk And The Boots To Wear was a headline in the Malvern Gazette 100 years ago.

It came as Mr C W Allen, the champion long-distance pedestrian of the world, gave an exhibition of his powers in Malvern.

"At six o'clock in the evening, he started from Mr Oliver's boot stores on the Promenade and walked along the Belle Vue Terrace, through the Wyche cutting, round the hills by West and North Malvern, down Trinity Bank to the Graham Road and up Church Street to the starting point," the paper reported.

"This walk, which is practically an afternoon's walk to an ordinary individual, and has plenty of difficult ascents, he accomplished in the marvellous time of 49 minutes, or at the rate of eight miles an hour.

"A considerable number of people watched him en-route and the critics had to admit that in spite of the rapidity with which he travelled, it was a fair and square walk with no suspicion of breaking into a run.

"Mr Allen wore a pair of Oliver's celebrated boots and stated that he never had any others to beat them as regards wear and ease and comfort."

Elsewhere on the same page, the Gazette proclaimed that Malvern was "the birthplace of golf in the Midlands, and the Worcestershire Golf Club is the pioneer of the game".

The club, which is still very much alive, was proposing a union of all the county's clubs "to give the county a better status in the golfing world".