Downs Light Railway

The Downs Malvern is a private prep school in the United Kingdom, founded in 1900. It is located on a 55-acre (22 ha) site in Colwall in the County of Herefordshire, on the western slopes of the Malvern Hills. The school takes children aged 2 to 13 and comprises a nursery, kindergarten, pre-prep, and preparatory school; the preparatory school takes both day students and boarders. The Headmaster since 2009 has been Alastair Cook, who is a member of the Boarding Schools Association and the IAPS. Fees are currently up to £21,471 pa for full boarders and up to £16,221 pa for day pupils. Since 2008 the Downs has been the preparatory school for Malvern College. A distinctive feature of the school is its miniature-gauge railway, the Downs Light Railway, which was begun in 1925. Complete with a tunnel and a station, it is the world's oldest private miniature railway.

The Colwall Tunnels are a pair of railway tunnels that connect Colwall and Malvern Wells on the Cotswold Line, passing under the Malvern Hills in the Welsh Marches region of England. The original route planned for the Worcester and Hereford Railway did not include the first tunnel, but its inclusion became necessary in response to pressure for the line to serve the towns of Malvern and Ledbury. The first Colwall Tunnel was one of the railway's greatest engineering challenges, after several years of work, it was opened to traffic on 17 September 1861. Its limited cross-section and single track configuration were often felt to be inadequate, contributing to pressure for a second tunnel to be constructed. A partial collapse of the first tunnel during 1907, temporarily blocking the railway, was another contributing factor.During the 1920s, work on the construction of a second tunnel commenced. Once this newer, wider bore was completed and brought into service on 2 August 1926, the original Colwall Tunnel was permanently closed that same day. It was used during the Second World War for storing munitions, being furnished with a concrete floor and a narrow-gauge railway. Only the newer bore remains in use as of the present day. It has been proposed to reopen the older bore as a cycle route.

Colwall is a civil parish in Herefordshire, England, situated on the border with Worcestershire, nestling on the western side of the Malvern Hills at the heart of the AONB. Areas of the village are known as Colwall Stone, Upper Colwall which shares a common border at the Wyche Cutting with the Malvern suburb of Malvern Wells, and Colwall Green, spread along 2 miles (3.2 km) of the B4218 road, with the historic village core (at the parish church) being 1 mile (1.6 km) to the west of Colwall Stone. A feature of Colwall is the view of the Iron Age British Camp (Herefordshire Beacon), which largely falls within the southeast corner of the parish. The towns of Ledbury and Malvern are 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest and 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast respectively from Colwall Stone, via the B4218. Colwall is often included in the informal region referred to as "The Malverns", which refers to the Malvern Hills and the surrounding settlements.

Colwall railway station is a railway station on the Cotswold Line serving the village of Colwall in Herefordshire, England. The station has one platform with seating. There is no ticket office; a passenger-operated Permit to Travel machine is installed, and there has been a ticket machine (for use with credit and debit cards only) since 2015. The station was opened in 1861, the same year as the Hereford and Worcester Railway Line. Today services are available direct to London Paddington, Birmingham and Hereford. To the west lies Ledbury Tunnel and to the east, the Colwall Tunnels. The station is close to the Colwall Park Hotel and the (now defunct) Malvern Water bottling plant.

Colwall Park Racecourse was a British horse racing venue which operated from 1900 to 1939. It was known as one of England’s prettiest racecourses.The course was designed by journalist and National Hunt fan, Frederick Page, as a left-handed, mainly flat steeplechase course of one and a half miles. It had eight fences, including two ditches and a water jump. There was also a one-mile hurdle course. There was a slight rise on the far side of the course and a run-in of 400 yards.The course was situated at Brook Farm on the Barton Court Estate, near to the village railway station and was established by Roland Cave-Brown-Cave, a local man who had married the widowed daughter of the estate's owners. He built the nearby hotel, which still exists. The first meeting was held on Thursday 10 May 1900. Meetings were held annually, with the main races being the Herefordshire Open Hunters Steeplechase and Colwall Stewards Hurdle. Cave-Brown-Cave was reputedly not very good in business, and by 1915 the course was in financial trouble. As a result, the estate, including the racecourse, was auctioned off and bought by J. Scott Bowden. Racing continued throughout the First World War, with four meetings a year on Mondays in March, April, May and October. In the 1920s, the course continued to hold minor jump meetings and by the 1930s, it sold annual memberships and two Tote buildings had been built. The course proved popular with day trippers from South Wales, and hosted famous horses including the future Grand National winner Tipperary Tim who won his first race there, and African Sister, who would win the Champion Hurdle. The course also welcomed top riders like Ernie Piggott and Geoffrey Scudamore of the famous racing family.During the Second World War, Bowden sold the land, under threat of compulsory purchase, to military contractors Dowsett McKay. It became a military vehicle park for the duration of the war and afterwards the new owners chose not to continue racing. The final meeting at the course was therefore the one held on Thursday 25 May 1939. This was not the end of all racing at the course, however. Pony racing took place for five days in 1949 and the North Ledbury Hunt held point-to-point meetings there between 1960 and 1963.Nowadays, the area where the racecourse was is arable farmland and there is little visual trace of its existence, except for the concrete base of one of the stands and a short stretch of running rail. One of the Tote buildings is now a lunchroom on a local estate.

Jubilee Hill is situated in the range of Malvern Hills that runs about 13 kilometres (8 mi) north-south along the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border. It lies between Perseverance Hill and Pinnacle Hill and has an elevation of 327 metres (1,073 ft).Jubilee Hill was named by the Malvern Hills Conservators in 2002 in honour of the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The Duke of York unveiled a plaque at the top of the hill, commemorating its new identity, in 2003.The plaque was taken away by someone sometime in March/April 2018. The site was also previously known, and is still today by a group of locals, as 'Dad's Hill', after a well-loved local bicycle shop-owner called Mr Earp who climbed Jubilee Hill frequently. Commemorated there upon his passing a local group still climb the hill on the same day every year in his name. Jubilee Drive, the road which runs along the western (Herefordshire) side of the hills, was built and named for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, in 1887.

Pinnacle Hill is situated in the range of Malvern Hills in England, running about 13 kilometres (8 mi) north-south along the Herefordshire-Worcestershire border. It lies between Jubilee Hill and Black Hill and has an elevation of 357 metres (1,171 ft). It is the site of two possible Bronze Age round barrows.

The Elms School is a co-educational private boarding prep school located in Colwall, Herefordshire, England. Including the Early Years and Pre-Prep departments, it caters for children from 3 to 13 years old. The Headmaster from April 2023 is Mr Ed Lyddon, who is a member of the Boarding Schools Association and the Independent Association of Prep Schools (IAPS); The Elms was one of the IAPS's founding schools.

The Holy Well is set on the slopes of the Malvern Hills above Malvern Wells. The well is believed to be the site of the oldest bottling plant in the world. The Malvern spring water was first bottled on a commercial scale at the well and the building houses a modern commercial bottling plant.

Stowe Lane is a cricket ground in Colwall, Herefordshire. The first recorded county match on the ground was in 1974, when the Worcestershire Second XI played the Glamorgan Second XI in the Second XI Championship. The first Minor Counties Championship match played the on the ground was in 1993, and between Herefordshire and Cheshire. From 1993 to present, the ground has hosted 17 Minor Counties Championship matches and 6 MCCA Knockout Trophy matches (typically hosting a match from both tournaments each year). The ground has also hosted a single List-A match between Herefordshire and the Sussex Cricket Board in the 2000 NatWest Trophy.The ground is the birthplace of the Women's Cricket Association, formed in 1926 by a group of enthusiasts after a cricket holiday in Malvern. In local domestic cricket, Stowe Lane is the home ground of Colwall Cricket Club.

Wyche ( WITCH), often referred to locally as The Wyche, is a village and a suburb of the town of Malvern, Worcestershire, England, and part of the civil parish of Malvern Wells. It is situated approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Great Malvern, the town's centre, on the B4218 road that runs from Malvern to Colwall. The western boundary of the village is marked by The Wyche Cutting, a pass through the Malvern Hills that was once part of an Iron Age salt route, hence the name "Wyche" — several places in England associated with salt have this (or similar) in their name. As the crest of the Malvern Hills (running north to south) defines this part of the border between the two counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire, The Wyche Cutting itself forms a narrow pass through the hills between the counties. From the 1920s until the 1960s, this road (passing through The Wyche Cutting and Colwall) was the A4105, before being re-classified as the B4218. The Wyche village comprises the two informal areas of Upper Wyche and Lower Wyche, mainly comprising residential properties. The Wyche Inn is a public house situated in Upper Wyche and is the county's highest pub, with views to the east overlooking the Severn valley. Old Wyche Road is one of the country's steepest streets, with an incline as great as 17.54° at Upper Wyche.Just on the Herefordshire side of the Cutting (in Upper Colwall) is the location of the Wyche Innovation Centre, that was the former Skot Transformers building. This is also the home of the Malvern Hills Geocentre, a visitor centre based entirely on iPads with an attached cafe. Also in Upper Colwall is the Wyche Free Church.The nearest railway stations are Great Malvern (for the lower end) and Colwall (for the upper end); both are on the same line. The Wyche CE Primary School is located in Lower Wyche.

Malvern water is a natural spring water from the Malvern Hills on the border of the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire in England. The Hills consist of very hard granite and limestone rock. Fissures in the rock retain rain water, which slowly permeates through, escaping at the springs. The springs release an average of about 60 litres a minute and the flow has never been known to cease. Beneficial properties of the water have been reported for over 400 years, and the reason for such benefits was a topic of scholarly discussion by 1817. In the 19th century Malvern became famous for the water cure, resulting in its rapid development from a village to a busy town with many large Victorian and Edwardian hotels. The writings of the hydrotherapists James Gully and James Wilson, and well known patients who included Lord Lytton contributed to Malvern's renown at that time. The water was bottled on an industrial scale under the Schweppes brand from 1850 until 2010, and has been bottled by a family-owned company since 2009 as Holywell Malvern Spring Water. In 2012 the Holywell Water Co Ltd was granted permission to use the world-famous "Malvern" name in its branding, thus becoming Holywell Malvern Spring Water. It has been drunk by several British monarchs. Elizabeth I drank it in public in the 16th century; Queen Victoria refused to travel without it.