HEREFORDSHIRE has been labelled as one of the best places for hiking in the UK with its wide range of walking spots.

New research from waterproof accessory retailer, Sealskinz, has revealed the best outdoor sports to do in each county.

Their research found that hiking is revealed as the best outdoor sport overall across England, with golf and sailing as joint second.

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Herefordshire’s 196 hills and mountains, along with 46 official GPS walking routes throughout the county’s green countryside led it to come out on top.

Here’s a list of the top 10 places to go hiking in Herefordshire:

1. Cusop

Leaving the church where Herbert Rowse Armstrong used to read the lesson, this five-mile ramble follows the Dulas Brook on the border between England and Wales.

From Cusop Dingle, hikers can make their way up relatively unknown but imposing Cusop Hill. Armstrong murdered his wife with arsenic to become the only solicitor to have been hanged in England.

His victim Katharine is now at peace in the churchyard watched over by seemingly immortal Domesday yew trees.

2. Monnington Straddle and Vowchurch Common

“Men more learned than I have vexed themselves looking for his real grave”, wrote Welsh Nationalist Owen Rhoscomyl about Owain Glyndŵr in 1905.

The route from Vowchurch Common to Monnington Straddel has mature woodland and views.

A prominent overgrown mound close to Monnington Court is reputed to be the Welsh prince’s final resting-place.

3. Richards Castle, High Vinnals, Mary Knoll Valley

This seven-mile circuit visits commanding common and woodland. The Colonel, who won the Grand National in 1869 and 1870, was trained on the slopes of Hanway Common.

The going is mostly good to firm over gradual gradients, but there are precisely thirty stiles less than fences in the great race.

From Peeler Pond, an all-weather walk takes you to the shady stream course of the Mary Knoll Valley.

4. Lingen

Redolent of Lady Brilliana Harley defending nearby Brampton Castle in the Civil War, this north-west nook of Herefordshire became a battleground for locals adopting their own “siege mentality”.

The Stonewall Hill and Reeves Hill Conservation Group came about to protect the tranquillity of an area “under threat from wind power station developers”.

This five-mile walk features a quiet wooded valley bedecked with bluebells, high country lanes and a return from Harley’s Mountain to Lingen.

5. Knill

Knill, by Kington, is one of three locations in Herefordshire to be dubbed a “thankful village” – one of a handful of communities which escaped military fatalities in the Great War.

This five and a bit mile tour leaves the sleepy village for Garraway Hill Wood and Rushock Hill to pick up a fine section of Offa’s Dyke.

To the tinkling song of the meadow pipit, the return is a gentle contour around the village “hillock” and through the Hindwell Valley.

6. Bircher Common

A beautiful three-mile family walk over gently sloping common land.

The fine views from the grassland between Lyngham Vallett and Oaker Coppice command Herefordshire and the Black Mountains; a spectacular setting for sheep and ponies grazing beneath the Mortimer Trail.

The plain below at Mortimer’s Cross was the arena for a pivotal engagement in the Wars of The Roses with close links to the history of neighbouring Croft Castle.

7. The Black Hill and Olchon Valley

A five-mile hike over craggy terrain with stunning views.

From the very western edge of Herefordshire, walkers can look out across wooded hills, hidden villages of rusty stone and crouching churches.

The serrated edge leading to the summit is known as 'The Cat’s Back' because from the east it looks like a cat waiting to pounce on his prey.

8. Fownhope

This rollicking six-mile hike takes in a coveted stretch of the river Wye - the Golden Mile - between Fownhope and Ballingham.

The return offers a fine perspective from the pastures which Tom Spring ran up and down with his butcher’s wares before he became All-England Bareknuckle champion.

This route is a good alternative to the Wye Valley Walk in these parts, which follows shady tracks on hills three miles away from the eponymous river.

9. Bredenbury, Wacton, “Fencote Station” and Grendon Bishop

A whimsical seven-mile ramble in search of a remote, disused railway station.

Francis Wigley Greswolde Greswolde-Williams, a man of many parts as well as many names, would commandeer the Bromyard and Leominster railway each year for his family to go shooting in Scotland.

The train would stop on occasion while the guard nipped out across the fields to fetch some playing cards for his passengers.

10. Vagar Hill

Along this five-and-a-half-mile expedition over springy turfed moorland, walkers may find the orangey-breasted stonechat.

With flicking wings and tail, he welcomes people to his domain with a pebbly song from a prominent perch in the gorse. He is also a rare ally for the hill farmer in these remote uplands above Dorstone in the Golden Valley.