The roof platform
On a clear day the view from the top reaches what tradition counts as sixteen counties, as far as the Malverns and the Welsh hills.
The author is Newton2 (cropped by Yummifruitbat) — CC BY 2.5 · Phil Dolby — CC BY 2.0 · Roger Davies — CC BY-SA 2.0 · John H Darch — CC BY-SA 2.0
At 312 metres on Broadway Hill, the second-highest point in the Cotswolds, stands a tower built for no practical purpose whatsoever: balconies, turrets, battlements and gargoyles assembled by the architect James Wyatt and finished in 1798 for the 6th Earl of Coventry — the idea was Capability Brown's — purely so it could be seen and seen from. That is more or less the whole proposition. On a clear day the roof platform takes in what tradition insists are sixteen English counties, with the Malvern Hills and the Welsh mountains sitting on the far edge of the view. Inside it is far smaller than the photographs suggest. The whole tower is 20 metres, 65 feet, high: small exhibition rooms stacked one above the other, reached by a narrow spiral stair — a short climb, but a tight one. The best of it is the William Morris room: he took the tower as a country retreat in the 1870s, and it was from here that he launched his campaign to protect historic buildings. The floor above is given over to the Royal Observer Corps, which used the tower as a wartime lookout for enemy aircraft. The grounds deserve as much of your time as the tower. A short circular walk of about 1.2 km brings you close to a herd of red deer, the Morris and Brown cafe sits by the entrance, and buried in the field is a genuine Cold War monitoring bunker, operational from 1960, manned until September 1991 and refitted exactly as it looked in the 1980s. Tours are guided, last up to 45 minutes, and run at weekends, bank holidays and selected days from April to October; you descend by vertical ladder and the minimum age is ten, so it is not an outing for the whole family. The tower sits on the A44, one mile south-east of Broadway village: five minutes by car, or about half an hour on foot up the Cotswold Way, which is a genuine climb rather than a stroll. No bus goes there. And it must be said plainly that everything here depends on the weather: on a grey or drizzling day — common through much of November to March, when the tower closes at 16:00 on weekdays and 16:30 at weekends — you are paying to stand inside a cloud. Look at the horizon before you drive up the hill, not after.
On a clear day the view from the top reaches what tradition counts as sixteen counties, as far as the Malverns and the Welsh hills.
A real Royal Observer Corps monitoring post, manned until 1991 and restored to its 1980s fittings; guided tours must be booked, run at weekends from April to October, and are reached by a vertical ladder.
A short circular walk past the red deer herd ends at the Morris and Brown cafe, easily the best part of the visit with small children.
Middle Hill, Broadway, Worcestershire WR12 7LB
The weather decides, not the budget. On a clear day yes — the platform is the whole point, and the William Morris room is a pleasant bonus. On a grey or misty day, do not climb: take the grounds ticket (£4) or stick to the two free public footpaths that cross the hill, since the shot you actually want is of the tower from outside anyway.
The grounds, the circular walk and the cafe, yes — the deer are a hit, though the path turns muddy after rain, so wear proper shoes. The tower itself is a narrow spiral stair with no lift, so the pushchair stays at the bottom, and the bunker tour is closed to under-tens because you go down by vertical ladder.