The highest summit affords a panorama of the Severn Valley, the hills of Herefordshire and the Welsh mountains, parts of thirteen counties, the Bristol Channel, and the cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford.

The Hills run north–south for about 8 mi (13 kilometres), in between Great Malvern and the village of Colwall, and overlook the River Severn valley to the east, with the Cotswolds beyond.

The highest point of the hills is the Worcestershire Beacon at 425 metres (1,394 ft) above sea level (OS Grid reference SO768452).

The hills are famous for their natural mineral springs and wells, which were responsible for the development of Great Malvern as a spa in the early 19th century.

The evidence of the complex history of earth movements which formed the Hills can be seen by multiple joints, fractures, faults and shears, which make identifying changes in rock types difficult.

[24][25] Malvern water is rainwater and snow meltwater that percolates through fissures created by the pressures of tectonic movements about 300 million years ago when advancing sedimentary layers of Silurian shale and limestone were pushed into and under older Precambrian rock.

[30] Key AONB species include dormouse, barbastelle, skylark, high brown fritillary butterfly, great crested newt, adder and black poplar.

[2] The Wyche Cutting, a mountain pass through the hills was in use in prehistoric times as part of the salt route from Droitwich to South Wales.

However, excavations at nearby Midsummer Hillfort, Bredon Hill and Croft Ambrey all show evidence of violent destruction around the year 48 AD.

[citation needed] Certainly the quarrying has changed the Hills forever, including creating habitats for frogs, toads, newts and other small animals.

[45][46][47] In 2000, a £1.3 million project to reintroduce grazing animals to the Malvern Hills and restore part of its historic network of water spouts was given significant backing of National Lottery funds.

The Malverns Heritage Project aimed to reintroduce grazing animals as a natural means of scrub management and restore several water features.

Although the conservation officer said any enclosures would be small and temporary there were worries that leisure activities that could be affected and that "the feeling of freedom associated with 'just being' on the Malvern Hills" could be lost.

[53] In 2002 the Malvern Hills were named the most popular free tourist attraction in the West Midlands in a survey commissioned by the Countryside Agency to take the temperature of rural tourism in the wake of the crisis.

[54] In 2006, Worcestershire County Council was awarded £770,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund for restoration work and preservation of the area by fitting cattle grids to roads across the Hills and encouraging local landowners to allow sheep to wander across their land.

[58] The Malvern Hills Conservators played a key role in ensuring that the area of the AONB is larger than that originally proposed.

The Partnership has a formal structure including representatives from private and public enterprises, officers from local authorities, the Countryside Agency and the Malvern Hills Conservators.

[60] The Malvern Hills are home to a wide range of outdoor sports and leisure activities, including walking, mountain biking, horse riding, orienteering, hang-gliding, paragliding, model aircraft flying, fishing, climbing and diving.

[74][75] In 1934, during the composer's final illness, he told a friend: "If ever after I'm dead you hear someone whistling this tune [from his Cello Concerto] on the Malvern Hills, don't be alarmed, it's only me.

"[76] Composers Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney used to take long walks together through the nearby Cotswold Hills and the natural beauty of the area, including the magnificent views of the Malverns, was a profound inspiration for their music.

Howells dedicated his first major work, the Piano Quartet in A minor (1916), to "the hill at Chosen (Churchdown) and Ivor Gurney who knew it".

[77] The Swedish singer Jenny Lind spent the last years of her life living at Wynd's Point near the British Camp.

[83] The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning spent her childhood at Hope End, a 500-acre (2.0 km2) estate near the Malvern Hills in Ledbury, Herefordshire.

[86] In City of Revelation (1973) British author John Michell theorised that Whiteleaved Oak is the centre of a circular alignment he called the "Circle of Perpetual Choirs" and is equidistant from Glastonbury, Stonehenge, Goring-on-Thames and Llantwit Major.

[89] Paintings of the Malvern Hills include Henry Harris Lines's The British Camp and Herefordshire Beacon (1872), now in the Worcester City Museums.

It tells the story of Stephen, a pastor's son who has visions of angels, Edward Elgar, and King Penda, the last pagan ruler of England.

[100] [101] The final scene of the play, where the protagonist has an apparitional experience of King Penda and the "mother and father of England", is set on the Malvern Hills.

[102] A famous historic Virginia Landmark, Malvern Hill was a house built in the 17th century by an English settler, Thomas Cocke, later the site of an American Civil War battle.

As a result, the [h]ills are clearly visible and easily recognisable from a considerable distance away [and] constitute an iconic feature in the local and regional landscape.

[104]The AONB commissioned study to "identify and assess a selection of key views to and from the Malvern Hills" it was carried out in 2009 by Cooper Partnership Ltd, a firm of Chartered Landscape Architects.