Sarah, Matt, Harry and Annie Story

Harry

We were born at Clencher’s Mill Lane. But originally mummy and daddy were from Worcester.

Sarah
Harry and Annabel were both born in Clencher’s Mill Lane. Our first house together was in Eastnor and then we moved to Malvern.

Matt

The thing I like about living here is being able to put on a pair of running shoes and go out the front door and I’m right on the side of the hill. Being able to get quick access to such a beautiful landscape is fantastic. And every day is different as well. You go up in spring and the bluebells are out. You go up in the winter and it’s quite bleak, but it’s quite nice as well because there are not many people up there.

Harry

There’s the Three Horseshoes pub as well. So usually we walk over the common to go to go there. That’s our route.

Sarah

Even though we’ve moved slightly more urban, we now face onto the common and we can just walk across the open space to the pub. We go for long walks and end up in the pub on the way home.

Annie

Mum says the common is part of our garden, but everybody’s allowed on it because we’ve only got a small garden. Mum and Dad are going to try and make it bigger.

Sarah

Our garden is not that small compared to what we had here, which was the best part of an acre. But we’re grass seeding now. We’ve turfed most of it and now we’re grass seeding it. I think that’s what you mean by making it bigger. More space to play on.

Harry

Yes, at the back. So we’re going to put the trampoline there.

Annie

I like our garden because sometimes when it’s a sunny day we make sure we put the swimming pool out because it’s summer. I like going out onto the hills because when we get to the top, Dad gives us a chocolate bar. Also I like the Giant’s Cave.

Sarah
We’ve never seen the giant yet though. He makes himself smaller to fit in the cave.

Harry
I still go to school here in Eastor.

Sarah

It was Harry’s choice, he didn’t want to change schools. It’s a lovely school and we’re part of the community over here. They’re both members of the cricket club. It’s a small inclusive village.

Matt

It’s a really nice community. We have got The Woodshed here. The kids love The Woodshed, coming here after school. It’s a bit of a highlight and it’s a demand most Fridays.

Sarah

We are getting to know people where we live now. We know the people on our road and we know a couple of people with dogs that walk through the common. Not that many, but we’re building those relationships.

Harry

I like the trails up to the hills, and also going to the Obelisk. I like seeing what it looks like because it can look different every time you look at it.

Sarah

We do sunrise and sunset walks. The kids aren’t that pleased about it until we’re actually up the hills. This is especially true during the winter and spring.

Eastnor was a mystery to me until I moved out here. So the first day in my previous job role, we got to drive down that lane to go and look at the old watermill on Clencher’s Mill Lane. I said, “I’d love to live around here.” And somehow, good fortune and knowing the right people meant that we were offered a cottage on the estate and Matt and I moved out here. We got married out here, we’ve had both kids out here, we’ve raised the family out here. And we haven’t moved far, we’re 10 minutes away.

But since we moved here we’ve discovered that Matt’s family were out this way. We found names in gravestones we never knew about, and we found paintings on Auntie’s walls of properties in the village. We had no idea of the ties. So it’s a little bit like being called home. We were in Worcester before. So we were not too far but far enough that you didn’t really come over the hills to here, you went that side. I love the west side of the hills.

Harry

My great great great grandad made the granite trig point on top of the Worcestershire Beacon.

Matt

His name was Thomas Jones. He was a stonemason. This was the late 1800s.

Sarah

Here is definitely home. When we were small my grandad would phone us and say, “Right, we’re going up the Malverns.” And not just the hills we love. It’s all the sites — the churches, the ruins, and the commons. Picnics are invariably Castlemorton Common or the one up behind us now, the one where we walk the dog, Peachfield Common. All of my picnics growing up were there.

Harry

I really like the place that we went to for my birthday once.

Sarah

Chase End Hill. And it’s Annie’s favourite too. We’ve got a tree we call ‘The Family Tree’ and it’s an oak tree. We go there on special occasions. We go for breakfast and picnics, we sledge from there and climb the tree.

Matt

There’s a lot of history here. A lot of authors wrote about the area. People come here from all over the world to visit. I think sometimes when you live here it’s very easy to take it for granted. A lot of people live in the area and don’t really go up the hills.

Sarah

I once worked with a gentleman at the Elgar Birthplace Museum. Elgar was hugely inspired by the area and loved it here. This gentleman was originally from London and he’d moved to Malvern as a middle-aged man. He said to me, “Why would I ever go on holiday, I live here now, this is my holiday.” I think that sums it up. It’s so inspirational, so beautiful and we try not to take it for granted. It’s easy to take for granted and you shouldn’t. Even just walking out our front door in the morning, well, we’ve got the backdrop of the hills and it’s so pretty. It’s very easy to get used to it.

Matt
it’s so accessible to people. Sarah’s dad’s mobility is not particularly great so we’ve hired the The Tramper to go up to the beacon with the kids.

Sarah

We’ve used the one here now as well, we went up to the Obelisk a few weeks ago.

Matt

So being able to build memories with your dad in his 70s when normally we wouldn’t be able to do that. He was in his element, he said he hadn’t been up since he was a child.

I think this area has got it all. I think nowadays you don’t necessarily have to live by your office, a lot of people can now work from home. So it’s much easier to have this on your doorstep if you want to live and work in the area.

Sarah

I don’t think there is anything I’d change about the area. I’m a little bit too nostalgic about the area to want anything to change.