Church Stretton October 2021

A four nights self-guided walking holiday with a group of 17 mainly drawn from Beverley Ramblers.

Holidays

Photo Gallery

Walk 1 (Tuesday 19 October)

The walk was a loop from the HF house 'Longmynd' to the village of Cardington, led by Joe Neal.

Distance was about 9 miles.


Here we reach Battle Stones (403m) on our return ridge walk after lunch in the churchyard at Cardington.
The view to the east as we progress along the ridge.
Looking to the north at the same point, we can see the distinctive shapes of Caer Caradoc Hill (left) and The Lawley (right).
Four of our number will go on to climb both these ridges two days hence.
Church Stretton comes into view as we head west towards it.
A picture at Gaer Stone before we begin our steep descent towards Church Stretton.
In the town some of us went to a cafe for a refreshments before returning to Longmynd House.
Walk 2 (Wednesday 20 October)

Today we started the walk from the car park of the old lead mine at Snailbeach, south of Shrewsbury.

The mine's main buildings are still standing, but it is still possible to abseil down one of the narrow circular shafts.

Richard, a friend of Joe's sister Andrea, who joined us on the walk, is a trustee of this heritage site and led us today.

We did a figure of eight route (about 7 miles) beginning at the mine.
Here is the iconic winding structure above the capped main shaft.
The mine's former workers and their families lived in cottages in places like this, with holly grown as fodder for their cattle and pigs over the winter.
A rainbow appears after a shower.
We stopped for our second lunch break at Stiperstones.
The paths around here were quite tricky to walk along - hard quartz stones and boulders rather than the usual limestones or sandstones.
After this we dropped down to the return path along easier paths.
Back at the mine we visited this chimney on the hill which took poisonous fumes from the smelting house through a long flue and on into the air.
It won't have been a very healthy environment to live in back in the late 1880's.
Walk 3 (Thursday 21 October)

Today the plan was to do a longer leg along the ridge called 'The Lawley' and then return to Richard and Gill's secluded property for tea and cakes.
The second leg would then be led by Richard up and down Caer Caradoc Hill which rises up next to their home.

Here I am near the start of the climb up the first part of the figure eight loop.
The ascent of the ridge known as The Lawley.
Further on, looking north towards Shrewsbury.

This leg of the walk was about 5.5 miles.
On the second leg, most of the group had decided to call it a day.
Richard led just me, Nick and Allie around and up Caer Caradoc Hill.
This hill has a history with battles between the Romans and ancient Briton tribes.
We saw a cave which was a lookout post.

In this photo my long shadow is visible as I look northwest to across The Lawley.
Richard leads the final bit of the walk down Little Caradoc and down to Gulley Green.

The second leg was about 3.5 miles with a height of 459m reached at the fort on Caer Caradoc.

The tea and cakes made by Gill were very much enjoyed down at the house.
Happy walkers (1).

Nick, Graham, Joe, Rik, Graham and Kevin.
Happy walkers (2).

Graham, Ann, Isobel, Graham, Jane, Joe and Lesley.
Happy walkers (3).

Jane, Ann, Penny, Allie, Lesley and Isobel.
Happy walkers (4).

Penny, Rik, Lynn, Graham, Ann, Jane, Lesley, Isobel and Denise.
Gill with some of her fantastic tasty cakes.


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