100 British Bus Routes: Route 44
Worcester to Great Malvern
4 January 2025
ABOVE: First Worcestershire 33866 (SL14 LMM), an ADL Enviro400, in Pound Bank Road, Sherrard's Green, on a working of route 44 towards Great Malvern. All photos in this article were taken on Monday 16 September 2024.
Runs: Daily (no late evening service Weekdays / no evening service on Sundays)
Operator: First Worcestershire
Weekday daytime frequency: Every 30 minutes
Estimated Peak Vehicle Requirement: Four buses
Off-peak journey time (weekdays): 48-57 minutes
Estimated route length: 8-9 miles
Operator: First Worcestershire
Weekday daytime frequency: Every 30 minutes
Estimated Peak Vehicle Requirement: Four buses
Off-peak journey time (weekdays): 48-57 minutes
Estimated route length: 8-9 miles
As I have remarked before, Worcester's Crowngate Bus Station is a curious place. Half in the open and half under cover, with printouts from websites sellotaped to bus shelters to act as timetables. If you have ever downloaded a timetable from the First Bus website, you will recognise the style that applies to the version that has been taped up here for route 44.
There are around 30 weekday return trips on route 44 to Great Malvern and a similar number on Saturdays, requiring six sheets of paper in total (to be fair, this is the full timetable for both directions). Another two sheets make up the Sunday service. I'm sure I could do it in fewer pages, and make it look nicer.
ABOVE: Everything except a 44! Diamond Bus 30409 (YJ07 OZV), a Volvo B7RLE Wright Eclipse Urban, takes centre-stage in this view of Crowngate Bus Station in Worcester, working a 303 service from Kidderminster. Parked up on the left is Yarranton's of Eardiston 784 (BT66 TZE), a Mercedes-Benz Citaro O295. On the right is First Worcestershire 44586 (YX63 ZVD), an ADL Enviro200 on local route 30. It was the next bus on this route, on a 10-minute frequency, that nearly got co-opted onto route 44! Thankfully it wasn't.
Today I am taking the 1215 departure on route 44 to Great Malvern. Well, I am if it turns up, anyway! There's a driver, and an official, but no actual bus. As 1225 comes and goes, there appears to be a move to point the driver towards a single-decker bus that has just pulled in.
Just as the driver is about to board it, an X50 service from Evesham pulls in to the route 44 stop. This would appear to be the intended bus for the 1215 route 44 departure, an ADL Enviro400 double-decker. It should have arrived in from Evesham at 1208, according to the timetable, for which the irregular arrival times (1040, 1111, 1142, 1208, 1240, etc) suggest that First's notorious AI timetabling software has been at work. As it's 1230-ish, the AI may not have been as intelligent as intended!
The driver gets settled, and, by the time loading has been completed, it is 1234 - almost 20 minutes later than scheduled. We don't get far in a hurry, though. A bus at one of the covered stops has not pulled in properly and we are blocked for a further half-minute until it can get out of the way.
ABOVE: Another view of Crowngate Bus Station, taken a few minutes after the previous picture, but looking the opposite way. First Worcestershire 67431 (SL63 GBF), an ADL Enviro300, is right in front, whilst First Worcestershire ADL Enviro200 44582 (YX63 ZUD) is over on the right.
Once free of the bus station, it only takes a moment to get out to the River Severn, giving us a view of Worcester Cathedral. Worcester has been the seat of a bishopric since the Seventh Century, and the Cathedral was served by monks until the Reformation.
ABOVE: Worcester Cathedral
We head into the western suburbs of the city. St John's is known locally as "the village in the city", having been an independent town until 1837.
Lower Wick is a 1960s housing estate where the roads are named with a Canadian theme (Baffin Road, Edmonton Close, Columbia Drive, etc), but a 1990s development on the other side of the main road has taken an avian theme (including Crane Drive, Osprey Close and Cormorant Drive).
ABOVE: Lower Wick Roundabout
Once past the Lower Wick roundabout, we are onto the Malvern Road, which will take us most of the way to Great Malvern itself. We cross the River Teme (Worcester to South of Newtown, Mid Wales) which marks the edge of the city of Worcester, and enter the village of Powick.
A medieval bridge across the Teme at Powick, just out of sight behind the trees a couple of hundred yards away, is a Grade-I listed scheduled monument; the scene, in 1642, of one of the first skirmishes between Royalist and Parliamentarian soldiers in the English Civil War (info from Wikipedia).
ABOVE: First Worcestershire 33866 (SL14 LMM), an ADL Enviro400 already seen in the title picture, is somewhere between Newland and Powick, on a Worcester-bound service on rotue 44.
On through the village of Newland (population, 310). It's somewhere around here that a woman mutters about how slowly the bus is going, given that it's late. The fact that we're on a steady climb into the Malvern Hills appears to have passed her by. It's difficult to get a lot of steam up when you're heading uphill from a standing start!
We take a detour to serve the Malvern Shopping Park, one of these out-of-town complexes that drags people away from town centres, with around 20 High Street shops and free parking. At least the 44 is frequent enough (half-hourly on weekdays) to offer an alternative to the car.
ABOVE: First Worcestershire 33870 (SL14 LMY) enters Malvern Shopping Park.
As the crow flies, we're about 70 per cent of the way through the journey. But the timetable says that we're only half-way through the journey, with around 23 minutes scheduled to cover the remaining two miles.
We are, of course, going to take a little detour, in the way that buses do (for me, that's part of what makes them so fascinating). We're in Malvern Link. Not only are the hills spread out right in front of us, but continuing straight on down the road we are now on would get us to Link Top, the Great Malvern terminus, in less than a mile.
So we turn left...
ABOVE: Malvern Link
We're heading into the large residential part of Malvern to the south of what has now become the Worcester Road, and east of Great Malvern itself. We head through suburbs such as Sherrard's Green and Barnard's Green.
ABOVE: The junction of Madresfield Road with Elgar Avenue in Sherrard's Green
It's in this area that we are all 'treated' to a phone conversation between a woman (on the bus) and a man (on the other end on loudspeaker). The gist of this is that the woman wants the man to guess where she's going. My hunch would be Great Malvern, but she's being more specific. After an interminable conversation, the whole bus understands that she will be heading for "Macca's", which is either a friend's house or a fast food restaurant, and then to the Doctor's. Thankfully, we are spared any details as to the reason she might need the latter!
She leaves in Barnard's Green and peace descends again, allowing one to enjoy the fine scenery of the Malvern Hills.
ABOVE: Pound Bank Road, near Barnard's Green
In Barnard's Green is something known locally as the Clock Shelter. And looking at it, what else could it possibly have been called...?
ABOVE: Barnard's Green Clock Shelter and War Memorial. The 'decorative poppies' can just be picked out through the windows on the extreme left.
This Grade-II listed structure, in art deco style, was built in 1945 as a War Memorial. It carries the poignant inscription: "Because the War to End All Wars Didn't".
War memorials in Britain that were built specifically to commemorate World War II are less common than those built after the Great "War to end all wars", as, in most cases, World War I memorials were just amended to reflect World War II as well. Amongst the reasons given for the Grade-II listing is one of artistic interest, as the "decorative poppies with the recessed panels are attractive, well executed and appropriate ornamentation" (info from Historic England).
We're heading towards the centre of Great Malvern now, and we pass the magnificent Christ Church Malvern.
ABOVE: Christ Church Malvern
We pass the railway station, which is a bit of a stroll from the town centre. I recall that fact from my only previous visit here, in 2021, to go to a Gilbert & Sullivan show at the Malvern Theatres (plural), an 1884 arts centre and cinema that has had a modern structure built onto the side of it. That might sound ghastly but it's really not - it's spacious and modern, backing on to the local park, which was being used as a picnic area by the theatre-goers on the day I visited! (Google Streetview has been right inside - have a look!)
But the 44 makes light work of this stretch, even if it is uphill all the way, and we reach the Town Centre of Great Malvern, where most people, including me, leave the bus.
ABOVE: 33860 (SL14 DFF) drops off passengers in Church Street, Great Malvern, with a deep downwards slope leading off behind. Although the hills here make everything a bit distorted, the bus still looks like it is leaning rather a lot to one side, so I presume the driver has deployed the kneeling mechanism! Buses all show Great Malvern as their destination, even though technically they finish at (Malvern) Link Top.
Great Malvern lies at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Natural spring water flows from this area at a rate of about 60 litres a minute, and has been recognised as having health-giving properties. This combination of natural beauty and health benefits resulted in Great Malvern developing as a spa town from the early 17th Century (info from Wikipedia).
ABOVE: No prizes for guessing what probably inspired the name of the Water Cure Cocktail and Coffee Bar in Church Street, Malvern. I don't think any prizes can be offered either for thinking that this building might have started life as a Bank...
My impression of walking around the town is that the whole centre is built on the side of one of those hills. Every junction seems to have roads that veer off at completely different angles to each other.
ABOVE: Bellevue Terrace, heading upwards to the right, and Church Street, down to the left. A memorial to the composer Sir Edward Elgar stands between the two roads, and the top of it can just be seen in the centre background, behind the bushes.
I suspect that the geography of the town does not permit a practical place for buses to turn around or stand within the centre, so buses head off on a one-way circuit of more than a mile, heading for Link Top (of which more below).
I walk up the Worcester Road towards Link Top - this is the road that buses use to head back into town after they have turned around. I spot a bus stop flag that looks in need of some TLC. It has the words "Classic Interiors" on it. Is this some allusion to an expression of quality for the buses that come here? Or a reference to an operator of old (I could imagine a bus company called "Classic Interiors")?! It's neither - it's the name of a carpet and flooring establishment that has a shop opposite!
ABOVE: The Classic Interiors shop, and the bus stop flag
It's worth keeping one's eyes to the right when walking along this road in this direction. The gaps between the houses offer the most amazing views of the natural landscape. Imagine living in one of these houses and having this view from the back of your home!
The town is the heart of the Elgar Route, a 37-mile circular route around Worcester and Great Malvern (although avoiding most of the 44). The route commemorates the magnificent landscape that inspired so much of the music of Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934).
I am hugely appreciative of Elgar's music - I think I have said before that the Nimrod movement of his Enigma Variations has a special, private resonance for me, especially at this time of year. I somehow manage to miss the statue dedicated to Elgar right in the heart of the town, though (but there's a hint of it in the Town Centre photo above).
Also on the Worcester Road is a reminder of the healing qualities of the spring water. A plaque brings commorates both Dr James Manby Gully (1808-1883), who with his partner James Wilson founded a hydrotherapy clinic, and Charles Darwin (1809-1882), who was a client of that clinic. He took his daughter Anne Elizabeth there as well, although that ended sadly. Anne Elizabeth Darwin died in 1851 at the age of ten, having contracted scarlet fever two years previously. Her visit to the clinic here is described (on Wikipedia) as a "vain pursuit of help" , and Anne was buried in the Great Malvern Priory churchyard.
I come to yet another junction "at an angle":
ABOVE: Worcester Road heads upwards towards Link Top, to the left, whilst Bank Street, on the right, descends to the lower levels of Great Malvern.
So finally to Link Top, a locality of Malvern Link, centred on a sharp bend in the Worcester Road. This is a complex junction, with three separate roads all heading off to the west, although they come together as one shortly before the junction.
ABOVE: The complex three-way route (roads veer off left, centre and right) from the junction of Worcester Road at Link Top.
Buses on route 44, having come through from Great Malvern on more minor roads, pull into a layby right next to this junction, to terminate in the shadow of the Holy Trinity Church. The Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie (1892-1975), stayed in Malvern in the 1930s when temporarily exiled from his homeland, and attended services at Holy Trinity.
And, as I have already noted, Link Top marks the end of our journey on route 44. The bus will stand for a few minutes before heading back to Great Malvern, and on to Worcester.
ABOVE: The same junction at Link Top (the previous photo is what stands to the immediate left), where 33863 (SL14 LMF) has terminated.
Route 44 is a lovely drive to an area with natural beauty and plenty of stories to tell, as I hope I have hinted at in this article. The off-peak journey time back to Worcester takes seven minutes longer than the outward journey. You would think it would be quicker this way - it's all downhill, after all!