Nine o’clock on a Sunday morning, with streamers of cloud hiding the top of Worcestershire Beacon and the whole Malvern range spread under a cool and cloudy sky. Dew soaked our trousers as we brushed through the pastures and corn stubbles, walking north in a patchwork countryside of green and gold with the Malverns bulking on our right hand.

In the straggly hamlet of Evendine, a screech among the masses of petunias in a beautiful cottage garden made us jump. “Oh, that’s Harry our young bantam cockerel,” chuckled the lady of the house, leaning out of her window. “That’s his little trick, startling people as they go by. A blonde with highlights, he is. We’re getting him a couple of lady friends to shut him up!”

We struck off down a farm lane towards the high-wrinkled ramparts of the British Camp, one of several ancient forts and strongholds along the ridge of the Malverns. Long-tailed tits and blackbirds lifted their voices among the oaks and overshot coppiced hazels of Hatfield Coppice as we trod the broad track of the Worcestershire Way southwards along the foot of the hills.

We fingered the green, apricot-like fruit of a bullace tree that leant across the path, making one of those fantasy resolutions never actually to be fulfilled, to return and pick the ripened yield for a Christmas of bullace gin around the fire. Times Walks: the 100 best walks in the UK Find your favourite ramble, print it out, pack your rucksack, and head out into the countryside or city Times Walks: Portesham and Hardy’s Monument, Dorset Related Internet Links The best walks in the British Isles The 12 best pubs in England and Wales Alastair Sawday praises the determined and imaginative owners in his choice London's 10 best pubs Related Internet Links Walk London: 27 walks in the capital Related Links Times Walks: the 100 best walks in the UK

Following the medieval Shire Ditch up the spine of Broad Down, then on up the magnificent quadruple ramparts of the British Camp, I thought of proud Caractacus defying the Romans from these heights in AD51. The last stand of the Catuvellaunian king probably didn’t happen here, despite what legends say.

But watching children in bright football shirts swooping like buzzards down the slopes, and looking away into Wales and up over the Midland plains — a 100-mile view — it seemed a place where old spirits might linger. Looking down, we made out the churchyard of St Wulstan’s at Little Malvern, where Edward Elgar lies.

“If ever you’re walking on the hills and hear this,” said Elgar of the cello concerto he composed below the Malverns, “don’t be frightened — it’s only me.”