The Clent Hills lie south-west of Birmingham city centre in Clent, Worcestershire, England. The closest towns are Stourbridge and Halesowen, both in the West Midlands conurbation (and also historically in Worcestershire). The Clent Hills range consists of, in order from north-west to south-east: Wychbury Hill, Clent Hill (and Adams Hill), and Walton Hill (and Calcot Hill). The north Worcestershire range of hills continues eastwards to include Romsley Hill, Waseley Hills and the Lickey Hills.
Clent Hill is the most popular hillwalking hill in the range, although it is not often mentioned because the whole area is referred to as Clent Hills. Just under a million visitors a year are estimated to come to the hills, making them Worcestershire's most popular non-paying attraction.
Geology
The Clent Hills are a major outcrop of the Clent Formation consisting of Clent Breccia (predominantly a red-brown mudstone matrix) dating from the early part of the Permian period. The formation unconformably overlies the mudstones and sandstones of the Salop Formation which forms the lower ground to the north and east; both are assigned to the Warwickshire Group. The bedrock is cut by numerous faults, most of which are aligned NE-SW.
Geography
The hills along with the Lickey Hills form a range of hills in north Worcestershire known as the Clent-Lickey range (or the Clent-Lickey ridge). The largest of the Clent Hills is Walton Hill which is high followed by Clent Hill at . They are separated by a valley known as St. Kenelm's Pass, which starts as an escarpment one side of which along with the sides of the two hills falls away towards Uffmoor Wood; water flowing down this slope enters streams which become the River Stour. Close to the top of the escarpment, but just on the other side, stands High Harcourt Farm (which belongs to the National Trust, but its farm land is not open to the public). Below the farm the escarpment falls away and becomes a sharp V valley in which a stream flows down into Clent village. Where the valley sides are at their steepest the Walton Hill side of the valley is known as Clatterbach. In the past, before steam power replaced water power, the stream in the valley was dammed at regular intervals to provide power for watermills. The remains of one such dam can be seen behind the Vine Inn in Clent which was once a mill.
Either side of the two largest hills are two more hills. Beside Clent Hill is Wychbury Hill and beside Walton Hill is Calcot Hill. Calcot Hill is not really a separate hill but at the end of a long spur which runs from the summit of Walton Hill for about a mile. There is a public footpath along the spur joining the two hills. Alongside the spur is another deep V-shaped valley which was also dammed at frequent intervals to provide power to its mills. This stream flows on to the village of Belbroughton in which the Nash Crown Scythe Works used the water to power its machinery. On the other side of the valley is Romsley Hill, the valley banks of which are covered by Great Farley Wood beyond Romsley Hill are a number of lower hills (Windmill, Chapman's and Waseley) which join the Clent Hills to the Lickey Hills in one continuous chain.
The National Trust land on the hills encompass of woodland (both natural deciduous and coniferous forest plantations) and heathland, important for wildlife including fallow deer and common buzzard, plus visiting ring ouzel and common crossbill.
History
Clent appears in the Domesday Book as "Klinter", and may be derived from the old Scandinavian word klint for a cliff. Once part of a Mercian forest, the hills contain the remains of a multi-vallate, Iron Age hillfort on Wychbury Hill. According to local historian John Amphlett, a battle between ancient Britons and Romans was fought on Clent Heath.
The Clent Hills are graced with several classically inspired architectural works from about the 1750s. Most of them are in the private grounds of Hagley Hall but most of them are visible from public areas. Lord Lyttelton of Hagley Hall constructed the Wychbury Obelisk on Wychbury Hill in 1758, which is visible for many miles, even from the Clee Hills. Lord Lyttelton also had constructed many other follies including a Temple of Theseus, other small Greek and Roman temples, a full sized ruined mock castle (his lands did not contain a real one) and The Four Stones on top of Clent Hill.