Location: in a valley on Hangman's Hill, and due north of Gullet Quarry
Description: a contained spring near the trackside.

From the car park near Gullet Quarry, on Castlemorton Common, follow the uphill path north, past the house called Foxhall. A fork on the right of the main track leads down to Pink Cottage and spring water emerges from the undergrowth near the fork. Here also is a sealed containment that protects the water that was once piped to the cottage.

Some time after the 1880s Hill Cottage was not whitewashed but pinkwashed; its name was changed to Pink Cottage and the adjacent barn was turned into a tea room. Its home-made scones and cream were memorable and in the 1930s it was the venue for many children's outings.

In the 1930s Mary Cadman was a pupil at St James's, West Malvern. She recounts how the girls were treated by Alice Beard the headmistress. 'An afternoon holiday which Miss Alice gave us, to visit a little pink cottage up on the top of the hills, near the British Camp. We were given tea and allowed to roam the hills. It was there I first felt their power and beauty.[1] The Malvern Hills Conservators minutes of 10 July 1939 says there was a problem with a spring near the Pink Cottage.

One local lady, now in her eighties, remembers going there on many Sunday School trips. Another lady, also in her eighties, recalls how, every year, the children from her school, St Matthias in Malvern Link, piled into a charabanc which took them up to the foot of British Camp. From there they all walked up to British Camp, then on to Pink Cottage for lemonade and cakes. It was the highlight of the year, she added, remembering that the sun always shone on those occasions. Another lady remembered in the 1950s walking up from Castlemorton Common with her boyfriend and eating boiled eggs. They were probably cooked on gas, because electricity didn't reach these heights until 1960.

For years, first chars-a-banc then cars pulled into the British Camp car park and eager walkers followed the sign to Pink Cottage, but then there was a change. By the early 1960s there were complaints that the outbuildings at Pink Cottage were untidy, that the tea room was often shut and that the teas weren't up to the expected standard. Disappointingly for the hungry walkers it didn't open at all for the May Day holiday in 1964. The cottage got increasingly shabby, the teas increasingly rare, and the sign at British Camp was covered up.

Pink Cottage was solely reliant on spring water until 1984 when its owners, the National Trust, asked the Malvern Hills Conservators for an easement to lay a 19mm pipe from Foxhall and Pink Cottage to the mains water supply. In 2005 Pink Cottage was sold by the National Trust to private owners.

Illustrations
1. Pink Cottage
2. Spring water emerging by the track. 

Footnotes:
[1] Baird A (1956) I Was There, Littlebury and Co. p.442.

The map alongside is a small section of our more comprehensive map of the area. For the complete map together with a description and history of this site see "Celebrated Springs of the Malvern Hills" (2012).

 

  

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