Shells are also common.
For casual fossil hunters, best places to look are fresh scree and stream pebbles around Wenlock Edge. But also keep eyes open in villages, especially old drystone walls, for shells and for the wiggly lines that were worm burrows.
Church Stretton crumple zone
Down to the west from Wenlock, there’s just space to squeeze in the Ordovician Period, around Cardington at the base of Caer Caradoc. And then we arrive into the Church Stretton crumple zone. Here rocks of the earliest geological periods, Ordovician and Cambrian, are embedded within crumpled and mashed ancient crust stretching back into the Precambrian.
Ordovician rocks pop back up as the tottering towers of Stiperstones. The ancient earth movements have tilted it almost upright; after 500 million years of hard times, the stones have just been broken up a bit more by freeze-thaw of the Ice Age.
Even older stones, from the Precambrian, make the Long Mynd’s grey-to-black sandstone. It is folded and tilted almost vertical in the rocky stream hollows running down to Church Stretton.
The great Church Stretton fault, running southwest towards Ludlow and northeast to Newport, has not only moved rockforms sideways past one another but it has also moved them up and down. To the west of the valley and its railway line, ancient rocks have been moved downwards; east of the line, everything has moved up. And so the very old grey sandstones of the Long Mynd look across Church Stretton towards even older, and quite different, volcanic rocks of Hope Bowdler Hill and the Lawley.
Volcanoes of Uriconia
Uriconium Cornoviorum was the Roman town on the site now occupied by Wroxeter. The Uriconian Volcanics started off as a chain of volcanic islands, which were then crushed and mangled up in a continental collision. So Wrekin and Earl’s Hill, Caer Caradoc, Lawley and Hope Bowdler Hill have the same origin as Lakeland or Snowdonia, albeit 100 million years earlier. And these rugged hills east of the Stretton valley show the same mix of black basalt, grey andesite and pale grey to pink rhyolite; the same sort of lava flows and volcanic ash that make Snowdon or Scafell.
Scrambled Shropshire is difficult indeed when it comes to puzzling out how the various rock types fit together. But, by the same token, these small hills are a superb sampler of a dozen sorts of stone, from sea-floor coral and limestone of Wenlock Edge through the white quartzite Stiperstones, to the volcanic ash of Caer Caradoc and the ancient mangled crust that makes the Long Mynd.
Wildlife and plants
Common heather or ling grows prolifically over the acidic soils of the Stiperstones, while bell heather thrives on the drier, sunnier hillsides. The heathers are often interspersed with bilberry, known as whinberry throughout the county. The Stiperstones has cowberry and crowberry too. Red grouse are common on the heather moors, as are ravens and buzzards and the blackbird-like ring ouzel can be found here too, along with skylarks, meadow pipits and redstarts. Red kites have been thriving here too after their re-introduction to the area. Well-camouflaged grayling butterflies can be found on the heath, along with green hairstreaks and emperor moths.
Mat grass, which is so unpalatable to sheep, is found on poor acidic grounds of the Clee Hills. Wenlock Edge and the hills around Oswestry are of limestone, often ravaged by quarrying and mining. Here, herbs such as wild thyme, wild basil and marjoram flourish. On or near the coppiced woodlands of Wenlock Edge you will see not only bluebells and garlic but herb Paris, violets, the yellow bird’s-nest, primroses and orchids, including quite rare bee orchids.
In the north, the raised peat bogs of Whixall and Bettisfield are a haven for the rare Waved and Fork-mosses. You will also be able to see insect-eating sundew, adders, if you’re ever so quiet, and water voles, if you’re lucky and even quieter.
When to go
You can walk in Shropshire at any time. Winter, when the snow has fallen on the higher ground, gives the hills a new dimension and most sogginess in the ground will be replaced by a crunch underfoot. When the sun is out, the atmosphere is often crystal clear and you can see for 50 miles in every direction. Some of the vegetation will have died back making progress along the paths easier. Woodland paths may however be slippery at this time.
Nipstone Rock from Linley Hill (Stage 2)
Spring is a delightful time when nature is vibrant with new life and colour. The bracken is still red. In the woods the vivid chrome green of the new leaves contrasts with the abundant spring flowers that have poked their heads up above last year’s leaves. If it has been wet over winter, the paths across farmland and in the woods may still be muddy.
In summer, when the days have lengthened, the ground will have dried out, although some low-level paths may be overgrown with nettles and occasionally common hogweed. Make sure you take your waterproof leggings at this time for dew-drenched vegetation can soak you quite quickly as can farmers’ crops, which might well be tall at this time. Mid to late August is the best time to see the heather blooming on the Stiperstones.
In autumn the nights draw in again but the flame-colours of the bracken and the woods add great beauty to the landscape. Bilberry leaves have turned red and the heather to dark russet. Together they mix with the grasses to create a tapestry of colour any tweed designer would be proud of.
Getting there
Bus
National Express (www.nationalexpress.com) has a service (410) which runs from London to Shrewsbury via Birmingham and Telford.
Trains
Shrewsbury has a mainline station mostly served by KeolisAmey Trains, which run direct services from South Wales, Manchester, Holyhead, Birmingham and Chester. The Transport for Wales website (https://tfwrail.wales) provides times of trains, prices and a booking facility.
Getting around
Regular rail services link Whitchurch, Wem and Shrewsbury; Wellington and Shrewsbury, also Ludlow, Craven Arms and Shrewsbury. Buses between stages can be difficult in the more rural areas, although a useful bus links Whitchurch, Wem, Grinshill, Hadnall and Shrewsbury, which is very useful if you’re doing the northern section in stages. Regular buses also link Shrewsbury with Craven Arms and Ludlow. For more transport information for getting around the county, see Appendix C.
Accommodation and planning
Bridges Youth Hostel (Stage 1)
Appendix B contains a fairly comprehensive list of stage-by-stage accommodations but this will go out of date so it’s always best to check websites such as www.booking.com or www.trivago.co.uk when planning your overnight stays. The Shropshire Way Association intends to provide an up-to-date accommodation list too: https://shropshireway.org.uk.
Shrewsbury and Ludlow have accommodation of all types, so finding something suitable will usually be relatively easy unless a major event is taking place. The same cannot be said of rural Shropshire and you should book well in advance. While campers have more flexibility, if you intend to spend
