Philip Halling, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Worcester
The cathedral city on the Severn on the Cotswold Line: Foregate Street and Shrub Hill stations, the trains through Evesham to Moreton-in-Marsh, King John's tomb and Elgar, the vale road to Broadway, and the Malverns every Cotswold viewpoint looks across to.
- Nearest station
- Foregate Street (WR1 1DB) and Shrub Hill, ten minutes apart, on the Cotswold Line: 37 minutes to Moreton-in-Marsh
- Parking
- Worcester City Council car parks in the centre; no park and ride since Perdiswell closed in 2014. Tariffs on the council's car park page
- Best time
- Late July in 2027 for the Three Choirs Festival; a weekday for the cathedral
- When it's busy
- Three Choirs week in Worcester's years (24 to 31 July 2027, then 2030 on the three-city rotation); summer Saturdays in the centre
About Worcester
Worcester is the cathedral city on the Cotswold Line, where the trains from Oxford and Moreton-in-Marsh arrive after their run across the Vale of Evesham; many go on to Great Malvern and Hereford. The Cotswolds are not in sight from its streets: between the city and the hills lie 20 miles (32km) of orchard and market garden, and the view from the cathedral tower is the other way, to the Malverns. But every Cotswold viewpoint from Broadway Tower to Cleeve Hill looks west at those same Malverns, and the way to the hills from Birmingham and the Midlands runs through here.
Why come through here
Worcester has two stations on the Cotswold Line. Foregate Street, on the main street in the middle of the city, is the one to use if you are already in town. Shrub Hill, about ten minutes' walk east, is the bigger station with the car park. Most GWR trains call at both and take about 37 minutes from Shrub Hill to Moreton-in-Marsh by Pershore, Evesham, Honeybourne and the climb to the wolds, with 14 trains on a Sunday. From Moreton the 801 bus waits for Stow-on-the-Wold and Bourton-on-the-Water. Birmingham New Street to Worcester and the Cotswold Line on is the Midlands' route into the north Cotswolds, and the one getting here recommends. From Birmingham Airport the train comes through New Street too.
The buses are for the vale rather than the hills. First's X50 leaves Worcester bus station for Pershore and Evesham about every half hour on weekdays and Saturdays and hourly on Sundays, taking 45 minutes to an hour, and at Evesham the R4 goes on to Broadway five times on weekdays. By car it is the A44 all the way: Worcester, Pershore, Evesham, then Broadway, 22 miles (36km), and the climb up Fish Hill to Broadway Tower, with the M5 at junctions 6 and 7 for Cheltenham and Tewkesbury. There is no park and ride in Worcester. The city council's car parks are on its website, and the Cotswold Line is the better way to arrive from Birmingham in any case.
A day in the city
The cathedral stands above the Severn at the south end of the High Street, open from 10am to 5pm from Monday to Saturday and from 1pm to 3pm on Sundays. King John, who asked to be buried here in 1216, lies before the high altar, and Prince Arthur, Henry VII's elder son, who died in 1502, has a chantry chapel beside him. Elgar is the city's other name: The Firs at Lower Broadheath, about 3 miles west, is the cottage where he was born in 1857, now kept by the National Trust; check the trust's page for its opening days and prices. The Three Choirs Festival, which calls itself the world's longest-running choral festival, comes to the cathedral every third year.
Walk from the cathedral along the riverside to the Commandery on Sidbury, the Royalist headquarters at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, the deciding battle of the Civil War, and back up Friar Street and New Street, the medieval half of the city. The rest, the Royal Worcester porcelain museum, the Guildhall, the racecourse on Pitchcroft and the cricket ground at New Road, is on Visit Worcester (opens in a new tab).
Into the Cotswolds from here
The day loop is the Vale of Evesham and the escarpment above it. Drive or ride the A44 to Evesham, through the orchards and the asparagus fields that are the vale's trade, then up Fish Hill to Broadway Tower, where the view back across the vale takes in the Malverns you left behind. Broadway is below the tower, and the 4.5-mile walk up to it starts from the village. Snowshill and Stanton are the next villages along the edge, and the Cotswold Way section from Broadway to Wood Stanway is the day's walk if you leave the car at Broadway. Come home by Chipping Campden and the B4035 through the vale villages, or by Winchcombe and the M5.
By train the loop is simpler: the Cotswold Line to Moreton-in-Marsh, the 801 to Stow and Bourton, and the train home, which is a long day but a good one. Or get off at Evesham for the R4 to Broadway on a weekday, the only bus from Evesham to Broadway. Honeybourne, the next stop, is 7 miles from Broadway with no bus, so it is a taxi booked ahead.
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When to come
Worcester's full week is the Three Choirs Festival in the years it hosts it, every third year with Gloucester and Hereford: 24 to 31 July 2027 is the next, opening with Britten's War Requiem and closing with Elgar's The Light of Life, written for the festival and first performed here in 1896. For the Cotswolds the hourly Sunday trains on the Cotswold Line are the useful fact, since most of the Cotswold buses do not run on Sundays and the 801 does.
Last verified 27 October 2026 by our editors
Part of
The North Cotswolds
The high wolds between Chipping Campden and Bourton-on-the-Water: the Fosse Way towns, the Windrush villages, the Slaughters and the escarpment at Broadway.
Walks in and around Worcester
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Cotswold Way: Broadway to Wood Stanway
Walk · Starts in Broadway · 3 hrs, 15 mins · Dog-friendly
A 6.5-mile (10.5km) one-way walk on the second section of the Cotswold Way, from Broadway's green, moderate and three to three and a half hours: a long climb to Shenberrow, a steep descent into Stanton, then field paths by Stanway's church and gatehouse to Wood Stanway.
Getting to Worcester
- By train
- Foregate Street (WR1 1DB) and Shrub Hill; the Cotswold Line to Evesham, Moreton-in-Marsh (about 37 minutes, 14 Sunday trains) and Oxford, west to Hereford; trains from Birmingham.
- By bus
- First's X50 to Pershore and Evesham, half-hourly Monday to Saturday, hourly on Sundays; at Evesham the R4 to Broadway five times on weekdays. No bus from Worcester reaches the hills directly.
- By car
- The A44 by Pershore and Evesham to Broadway, 22 miles (36km) and about 45 minutes; the M5 from junctions 6 and 7 to Cheltenham. Fish Hill above Broadway is the climb onto the edge.
- Parking
- No park and ride (Perdiswell closed in 2014). Worcester City Council's centre car parks are on worcester.gov.uk; the Cotswold Line from Shrub Hill is the better way to the hills.
| Bredon | 15.5 mi |
|---|---|
| Evesham | 16.2 mi |
| Broadway | 22.4 mi |
| Winchcombe | 25.5 mi |
| Chipping Campden | 27.3 mi |
| Moreton-in-Marsh | 31.1 mi |
Places near Worcester
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EveshamThe market town of the vale, 7 miles below Broadway: the Cotswold Line station with free parking, the R4 bus up Fish Hill to Broadway on weekdays, the abbey's bell tower by the Avon, asparagus from St George's Day to Midsummer, and the Cotswold edge at Broadway and Willersey.
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BroadwayA Worcestershire village below the escarpment, an old coaching stop with a long High Street, two museums, an artists' history and Broadway Tower on the hill.
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Chipping CampdenA wool town with a High Street of honey stone, a 1627 Market Hall, a great wool church and almshouses, and the start of the Cotswold Way on its doorstep.
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Moreton-in-MarshA market town on the Fosse Way with a station on the line from London, so the easiest place to start a car-free Cotswold trip, with Batsford Arboretum close by.