Views of the Malvern Hills’ highest peak, Worcestershire Beacon, with the Shire Ditch leading up the slope. The Ditch is an impressive historic earthwork, which runs for several miles just below the crest of the Malverns. Its original purpose is lost in the mists of time: it might have been created in the bronze age. But it was surely a territorial marker. It still forms a stretch of the boundary between Worcestershire and Herefordshire.