Lickey Hills

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A view from the top of Bilberry Hill

The Lickey Hills (known locally as simply The Lickeys) are a range of hills in Worcestershire, England, eleven miles to the south-west of the centre of Birmingham near the villages of Lickey and Barnt Green. Part of them form the Lickey Hills Country Park of 525 acres (2 km²) belonging to Birmingham City Council and a golf club. The hills had been a royal hunting reserve belonging to the Manor of Bromsgrove. Free public open access began in 1888 when Rednal Hill was bought by the Birmingham Society for the Preservation of Open Space. The Society then presented it to the City of Birmingham in trust. Pinfield Wood and Bilberry Hill were then leased at a nominal rent. Cofton Hill, Lickey Warren and Pinfield Wood were bought in 1920. The final stage in restoring public access to the area was the purchase of the Rose Hill Estate from the Cadbury family in 1923. No part of the Lickey Hills Country Park is within the city boundary

The three hilltops geographically comprising The Lickeys - Rednal Hill, Bilberry Hill and Cofton Hill - are the summits of the Lickey Ridge, a formation of hard quartzite. Beautiful views over the city and surrounding countryside can be seen from the top of these hills. In the hills there is an obelisk commemorating the sixth Earl of Plymouth (died 1833) as gratitude for his work in forming the Worcestershire Yeomanry volunteer regiment of cavalry.

The Lickey Hills area is of significant geological interest due to the range and age of the rocks. The stratigraphic sequence, which is the basis for the area's diversity of landscape and habitat, comprises:

Barnt Green rocks - Precambrian tuffs and volcanic grits
Lickey Quartzite - a Cambrian quartzite
Keele Clay - a Carboniferous clay
Clent Breccia - a Permian breccia
Bunter Pebble Beds - beds of Triassic water-worn pebbles

The Lickey Incline runs about 1.5 miles south of the hills — it is reputedly the steepest sustained adhesion-worked gradient (approximately 2 miles at 1 in 38) on the UK railway system.