Track types

Rest stops

Tips and suggestions

Cycling the 106-mile Watkins Way over five days lets you enjoy the glorious views, plentiful historical sites and the challenge of the undulating landscape, without exhausting yourself. The middling pace of pedal power – fast enough to get around but slow enough to see the sights – is perfect for Herefordshire. 

1. Woolhope Church, HR1 4QR

The start of a few days of beautiful riding is appropriately peaceful and picturesque, with the route beginning at Woolhope Church. If you’re cycling from Hereford, expect a significant climb to Woolhope itself – but you earn it back in the other direction. It’s worth getting in the mindset of expecting a climb around every corner, too. An early highlight is crossing the River Wye, where you can pause to appreciate the vista. This first section sets the tone for much of the route: quiet roads and near-constant ups and downs.

2. Dinedor Hill, HR2 6PD - 7.95miles

Dinedor Hill is one of a few points on the trip where you come briefly off the GPS route, which you can download and display on your phone here. Follow the route as normal, but continue beyond it just a bit further to the top of the hill and the very rewarding views. As with some of the other stops and sights on the route, it involves a very slight detour off the road, but one well worth it. If you want to investigate the Iron Age hill fort that sits at the top, dismount and explore on foot.

3. Kilpeck Church & Castle, HR2 9DN - 9.63 miles

After carefully making your way back down the steep Dinedor Hill, head south for several miles, passing by another Iron Age hill fort, Aconbury Camp, before taking a hard right towards Kilpeck. Here you’ll find the Kilpeck Inn, home to a very friendly floppy-eared pub dog called Ollie, and a great spot to recharge your batteries with pub grub in the garden. Mere metres away is the elaborately carved Kilpeck Church and the remains of Kilpeck Castle - just lock your bike in the pub garden and head over on foot. The Kilpeck Inn also has four luxury rooms if you’re looking for a place to stay the night.

4. Dore Abbey, HR2 0AA - 5.08 miles

If Kilpeck whet your appetite for history and impressively grand old churches, you haven’t got long to wait before one of the highlights of the trip, Dore Abbey, which is about five miles away via Wormbridge, passing by Gilbert’s Hill Wood. A very short detour off the road after crossing the River Dore brings you to a churchyard, with the abbey itself set towards the back, imposing and proud. There are headstones hundreds of years old in the churchyard; look out for Thomas Jackson’s, inscribed with an apt poem on the passage of time in such a historical setting: Pass a few swiftly fleeting years, And all that now in bodies live, Shall quit like me, the vale of tears, Their righteous sentence to receive.

5. Clodock Church, HR2 0PD - 5.13 miles

A series of very sharp climbs and descents – amounting to nearly 700ft of elevation gain in about five miles of riding – take you to Longtown, to which you’ll return after taking a short detour to get to St Clydawg Church in Clodock, which dates back to the 6th century. The name hints at a strong Welsh influence; this section of the route is the closest to the Welsh border.

View the information for the remaining stages 6-16 here.

Coordinates