[citation needed] The main urban area is to the north of the Worcester Road and the Link Common that marks a sharply defined boundary on the south of the settlement between the railway station and the area's western limit at Newtown Road in Link Top.

To the south along the main axis of Pickersleigh Road, an unbroken built up area merges seamlessly into Barnards Green, a suburb of the former independent town of Great Malvern.

Malvern Link was the key site of the Romano-British pottery industry that produced Severn Valley Ware.

There are several kilns in the Malvern Link-Newland area and numerous water-filled clay pits, now lined with trees.

Large villas and small hotels were constructed along the entire length of the northern side of the Worcester Road, from the railway station to Link Top affording them an unhindered view over the Malvern Common and many of them were converted to boarding schools following the decline of the spa industry, and major middle class residential areas developed northwards during the inter-war years of the 1920s and 1930s.

As with the rest of Malvern, the Link owes much of its development to the area's rapid expansion from a cluster of hamlets and manors to a busy spa town during the mid 19th century.

It contains all the retail outlets common to a small town including pharmacies, furniture and dry goods stores, supermarkets, hardware stores, gardening centres, banks, betting shops, groceries, butchers, and cafés and fast-food, and a former cinema that is now a furniture warehouse.

A mural on the Pickersleigh Road wall of the Victoria pharmacy depicts many of Malvern's landmarks, including the hills, Edward Elgar and Link Stone, which now resides in the churchyard of nearby St Matthias Church.

Serving areas further afield are: the Malvern to Worcester route 44 operated by First Midland Red serving stops at the Barnards Green bus shelter and Pound Bank; The Worcester - Upton-upon-Severn - Malvern route 362/363 operated by Diamond serves that stops at the Barnards Green bus shelter and the Malvern - Gloucester - Cheltenham route 377 (Saturdays only) operated by Diamond, stopping at the Court Road shops and the Barnards Green bus shelter.

Gloucestershire Airport located at Staverton, in the Borough of Tewkesbury near Malvern is a busy General Aviation airport used mainly for private charter and scheduled flights to destinations such as the islands of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, pilot training, and by the aircraft of emergency services.

The location of the former independent boys boarding school Seaford Court, is the site of a new Malvern community hospital that was opened in 2010.

It was during the 'Forli' years that Elgar composed many of his works, including, among others, The Black Knight (1892), Sursm Corda (1894), and in 1898 the Variations on an Original Theme that gained him his international reputation.