We are incredibly lucky that my mother-in-law lives 15 minutes away from Malvern, and once a year she looks after our 3 kids for a night so we can have an evening away, just us 2.
It started as a treat for my 40th, and we’ve just done it for the 3rd time. As far as I’m concerned, it’s now a set-in-stone tradition!
The first time was a full 24 hours, the last 2 times has been more of an evening and back after breakfast, but it’s still a break from work, life, parenting, and after-school clubs so it’s brilliant.
I thought I’d run you through what we do and where we’ve been, including the hotels we’ve stayed at (as we’ve tried 3 now). Not included in this itinerary is Malvern Spa - my review of that is here - just because we haven't happened to go there on one of our breaks away, but it's a very good contender for somewhere to visit whilst you're in Malvern.
A day itinerary in Malvern
When we had a full day and night away, we started with a walk, because you’ve kinda got to if you’re in Malvern, right? The Malvern Hills have been visited by people coming from far and wide since Victorian times due to the beautiful views. Malvern itself is also famous for inspiring lots of literary greats including J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth (Lords of the Rings) and C.S. Lewis' Narnia (The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe) as they were both frequent visitors. People have written about Malvern's water from it's many natural springs being a cure for ailments since medieval times, but in the 19th Century this really picked up pace and people flocked to the Worcestershire village - which then soon became a town with large hotels. Rich Victorian's flocked there to cure themselves of all manner of things with fresh air, water and beautiful views. It's claimed that Queen Victoria always had a bottle of Malvern Water on her!
On the Malverns, you have the Herefordshire Beacon at one end (with an Iron Age Fort called British Camp around it) and the Worcestershire Beacon at the other, with a ridge you can walk along between the 2. A favourite walk for cubs, scouts and girl guides in the area, it’s about 2.5 - 3 miles depending on your exact route and takes about 1.5 - 2 hours to walk. BUT you also need to allow for getting up to British Camp, and down from the Worcestershire Beacon. To get to British Camp, you can park at the reasonably sized but often busy British Camp car park and follow a path up - this walk plan says it takes 1 hour 30 minutes to get up to British Camp as it's a 2 mile walk.
On our 24 hour Malvern break, we parked at the Wtche Cutting, which was free on the side of the road, and has some public toilets just nearby. From there we waled for about 30mins to the Worcester beacon. It’s a very easy little walk so that you feel like you’ve had some fresh (blustery) air, but it doesn’t take much time out of your day. This walk shows you a starting point, but it goes further than the beacon and loops around, whereas we just went up to the beacon and turned around and came back again.
Lunch in Malvern
After a walk up the the beacon, we headed to our hotel to check in and drop our bags, before heading out for lunch. But I’ll talk more about the hotels later. For lunch, we grabbed an amazingly cheap and amazingly tasty sandwich at a little cafe we’ve noticed doesn’t exist any more - it’s now a greengrocers. So I guess it was too cheap, which was a shame.
No where near as cheap but very lovely is Faun - where we went later that day for fancy cake and wine, but we’ve also had brunch there with kids and friends before. Or another favourite is Alturo Lounge, as their menu is vast and varied and always appeals.
Afternoon wandering
Now, this might be a curve ball, but the next activity on our day in Malvern was that I got my ears pierced! We were going to just hang out in various bars and cafes and “people watch” but I’d been wondering about getting another piercing and Lumina could squeeze me in so we went for it! It wasn’t super convenient, having it done so far from home, as I couldn’t take them up on their offer of a free bar change after a few weeks, but the service was great and I didn’t get any issues. They use a needle, rather than a gun, for anyone wondering.
Whilst you’re on Church Street, a great shop for a wander around is Rhubarb - an eclectic mix of home interiors over several floors.
Evening entertainment and restaurants for eating out in Malvern
Now, something you might not expect from a smallish quiet town is that it has a massive and thriving theatre scene! Their theatre is in the centre of town, surrounded by beautiful grounds (and an amazing wooden play park that our kids love) and gets loads of big shows from the West End. We saw The Heathers on this particular trip - which we didn’t super love, but that wasn’t the point - it was a proper show! Priory Park actually bridges the gap between the theatre and the Malvern Splash swimming pool, which is also great for kids.
Because of the theatre, you’ll find lots of restaurants offer a pre-theatre evening sitting. We booked one such meal at Peppe's Italian, which was perfectly nice. I didn’t want to eat anything creamy and so there wasn’t an awful lot of exciting choice for me and I think I ended up with spag bol, but it was good and the staff - whilst all incredibly young - were nice.
The next time we had a night out in Malvern, we ate at Flute Signature, an Indian restaurant which we absolutely loved! It’s across the road from Waitrose so we could go there and buy beers and take them with us as they have a “bring your own” license. The team were lovely and the food was great - we raved about it all night and vowed to go back with our kids, as there was another family there, but we haven’t done yet.
On our most recent visit, we ate at Alturo Lounge, just because we wanted something easy to find and well priced. We had a flat bread with lamb, and some kind of tasty burger.
Somewhere I had noticed before was Bar Limon, and having stopped there for drinks on our latest visit, it’s where we hope to eat next time. They do tapas, and the vibe in there was just really friendly and relaxed - whereas we feared it might not be, as a small local place in a town we aren’t from.
After dinner drinks
The night we went to the theatre we didn’t have time for anything afterwards as the show finished late. After our Indian we had some amazing cocktails at The Water Cure, which has a great interior, followed by Prosecco at Alturo Lounge (I remember not that many years ago when you couldn’t buy sparkles by the glass!). And this time we went from Alturo Lounge, to Bar Limon - and then tried to go to The Water Cure but they were closing! So instead we went back to our hotel bar at The Abbey and had a Baileys, and it was a really nice atmosphere.
Where to stay in Malvern
For our first trip, as it was my 40th, my husband had treated us to a room at Mount Pleasant Hotel… but to be honest we weren’t very impressed. The room was big, but all of the furniture felt like it belonged in a student house and nothing matched. There was parking on site, but the reception was along a narrow corridor and felt like the lady was sat in a cupboard. Breakfast the next morning was served at the Mulberry Tree restaurant (next door, but attached / part of the hotel). We can remember there being cereals to help yourself to, and maybe a small selection of pastries, but for anything cooked you requested it - which meals it was cooked to order and done “properly”, but if you don’t like asking for things or being a bother and would rather than choose from a buffet, then it wasn’t the most ideal hotel breakfast.
The next time, we stayed at Wetherspoons. Instead of £300pn it was more like £85 and my husband was quite worried about what we’d let ourselves in for. We had to park down the road in a pay and display, but it was only a 5-10min walk straight up a hill (Malvern is very hilly) to the pub. We did wait for absolutely ages to be able to check in… we waited at the hotel reception hatch, then at the bar, then at the reception again. I think one guy was rushed off his feet, checking people into their rooms when the bar was quiet, but the 2 places are a couple of flights of stairs apart. That didn’t make for a good start to be honest, but the room was perfectly adequate. Small but it didn’t matter, and surprisingly quiet despite being over a busy bar and on a main road. Breakfast was a normal Wetherspoons breakfast in the bar the next morning, with instant coffee but lots of interesting art on the walls about the writers who had been inspired by Malvern. Value for money wise, I felt it was much better than Mount Pleasant and a perfectly good little place.
On our last visit though, we cracked it and found the perfect compromise on price and nice surroundings. We stayed in The Abbey, a beautiful big old building in the centre of Malvern (all of the 3 I've mentioned are just a few minutes apart in the town, but The Abbey is just particularly central). I think it was around £130 a night, and you feel like you're arriving to a really beautiful grand Hotel. There's on site parking, and a "proper" reception. There is a hideous (from the outside) 70's extension but once you're inside, it's fine. We actually stayed in this "new" part which we thought would be charmless but it was perfectly nice - a decent sized room and matching furniture. The bar was big and nice to hang out in when we got back that night, and breakfast was an impressive "proper" hotel buffet. This is where we'll plan on going back to next time!
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