We walked this way, more-or-less, six years ago (see Hopesay Hill and Wart hill) on a beautiful spring day. I’ve just checked the photos – it’s hard to believe it was the same place. Today it’s hazy, the views very limited and the lighting flat. At least it’s dry, and we’re not melting, as we would if we’d come this way just three or four days ago. Hopesay is a very quiet part of the Shropshire hills, in the midst of some very attractive hill country but not well known. We saw more red kites (out of camera range – sorry) than walkers. It deserves to be better-known, but I’m glad it isn’t…

Navigational note: we’re walking clockwise from the start in Hopesay village; the red line on the map above shows our intended route, past Grist House. We actually followed the longer route to its north-west, at first along a very well-made farm track that isn’t shown on any of the maps. Not on the OS 1:50,000 or 1:25,000, nor the Google or Bing aerial views. We never even noticed the correct route – we just followed a track we’d expected to find…

View OS map on Streetmap http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map?X=339530&Y=284195&A=Y&Z=120