We find ourselves with time for a short stroll towards the end of the afternoon – Shirlett Lane will be ideal. It’s a there-and-back-again walk, but things do look different on the return journey.
Category: Shropshire hills
Warm tones on a cold morning
There could be some blustery showers later in the day, so we’ll have a stroll in the morning. The world seems quieter before lunch… It stays dry, until the first spots of rain fall just as we get back to the car. Ten minutes later it’s pouring!
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Harley and Cressage
A farm track, quiet roads and a short woodland path make this a pleasant stroll through attractive country. There are great views to the Wrekin on the outward leg, but (how churlish can one get?) the sun is directly behind us, so the lighting for those views is rather flat. Heading back up Wood Lane, our route from Cressage, the sun is in our eyes – we can hardly see anything at all! Further up the lane, the light is filtering through the autumn leaves, and the short stretch though Butler’s Plantation is delightful. Finally, we turn back towards Harley – there’s the Wrekin again.
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Tally Ho!
It’s a pub, at Bouldon (not today, thanks…). We called in one evening several years ago – the landlord asked us if we were lost (a strange kind of welcome). Apparently that’s how most people find the Tally Ho. We’re walking around quiet lanes in Corvedale, and though it’s not as sunny as it looked like being (with a few drops of light rain as we left the car), there are some brief spells of dramatic lighting. The sunshine is at its best, inevitably, when we’re in the car…
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Clee breezes
Thursday 22 October: there’s a stiff breeze from the north-west, and the air is cold, but we’ll soon warm up as we walk from Cockshutford, heading for the top of Brown Clee at Abdon Burf. Too cold to hang around! We’ll retrace our steps for a little way to continue along the ridge (though it’s hardly that) to the secondary summit at Clee Burf – and it’s all downhill from here, pausing only to record the presence of some splendid (though not fully-grown) parasol mushrooms below Nordy Bank.
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Blowing away the cobwebs
We’re walking from Langley Chapel to Church Preen and back. We walked this way in January, so we’ll do it anticlockwise this time. There are one or two showers about – just a few drops in the wind, but enough to provide a couple of rainbows. The wind is more significant – up on the ridge from Broome to Church Preen, it’s really blowing, but the sun is shining and the views are wonderful (when we can see over the hedge).
We’ve visited Langley Chapel before – for photos see https://geoffspages.blog/2016/03/25/langley-chapel/
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Flat grey
That’s the weather (nothing to do with what we used to call ‘coffee’) – no sunshine, hazy, a grey sky and flat lighting. It’s pleasant to be out, wandering across the fields from Barrow to Wyke and back, but there’s no drama in the landscape – even the autumn colours are subdued.
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Rushbury and Cardington
We’re exploring the lanes between the Wenlock Edge and the Stretton Hills. Although they’re barely two miles apart, Rushbury lies beneath the Edge, while Willstone Hill’s Battle Stones and Caer Caradoc define Cardington. They may be quiet, but the villages feel prosperous, and Cardington’s Royal Oak is the archetypal English pub (no, not today…). Walking anticlockwise from Wall-under-Heywood, we reach the highest point on our route as we pass – and we’d better visit – the Sharpstones, where rocks poke out of the hilltop pasture. From there it’s all downhill…
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October shades
It’s a still, cold, grey afternoon – the only significant colours are those of the season, in leaves, berries and fungi.
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Timber!
…in Birch Coppice and Causeway Wood, a forested hill between the Stretton hills and the Wenlock Edge. We hadn’t intended to come here today, but at the starting point for our planned walk, there were several horse boxes, and a quad-bike loaded with wicker hampers was just arriving. We’ll move on…
We’d been here five years ago (see ‘Birch Coppice‘), and resolved to revisit. Once again, our plans changed when we found the path ahead was deep in near-impenetrable mud. We’ll follow the forestry road and see where we get to. The road in question goes around perhaps ¾ of the hill, and given that this is access land, there could be a path completing the circuit*. When we arrived at the scene of serious-looking forestry operations (there were warning signs and several huge stacks of timber awaiting transport) we decided to retrace our steps, and try again another day.
* The aerial images on Google Maps seem to show such a path. Next time!
View OS map on Streetmap http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=351635&Y=298820&A=Y&Z=120
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