Close to the Edge at Diddlebury
Distance: 6.25 miles,
Minnimum Time: 3hrs,
Difficulty: Moderate,
Description:
Wenlock Edge needs a book to itself, so all you will get here is the merest glimpse, but it should whet your appetite for more. This great tree-clad escarpment is one of Shropshireâs most famous landscape features, partly because it plays a role in A E Housmanâs collection of poems entitled A Shropshire Lad, some of which were set to music by the composer Vaughan Williams. It is best seen from the west, appearing as an unbroken escarpment running from the Severn Gorge to Craven Arms. From the east it is more elusive, rising almost imperceptibly. Within a basic ridge structure, it seems to form a series of waves or steps, and consists for part of its length of two parallel edges, divided by Hope Dale. Ancient Woodland Wenlock Edge is composed of Silurian limestone formed about 420 million years ago. Developing as a barrier reef in a tropical sea on the edge of a continental shelf, it was built up from the accumulation of sediments and the skeletons of marine creatures such as corals, brachiopods and crinoids. Earth movements and erosion then sculpted it into the escarpment. Most of it is wooded, and much of this is ancient woodland, growing on steep slopes where there has been continuous tree cover since the end of the last ice age. The dominant species is ash, which has a special affinity with limestone, but many other types are present. Beneath the trees are lime loving shrubs such as spurge laurel, spindle and dogwood. The ground flora is rich and varied, especially along the rides and in newly coppiced areas, where flowers respond to the increased light by growing more profusely and attracting many butterflies.
Exploitation. In the past, the Edge was always seen as a valuable resource to be exploited. Timber provided building materials, tools and charcoal for iron smelting. Limestone was used for building, for making lime, for iron smelting and, more recently, as an aggregate. This latter use still continues and there are unsightly quarries between Presthope and Much Wenlock, where you can walk the ridge and look down on the unedifying spectacle of monstrous machines digging up Shropshire so that heavy lorries can carry it away. Thereâs nothing like that on this walk, where the quarries you pass are small ones, long since abandoned and now transformed by nature into mossy, fern-filled caverns of green.
While you're there: The Dower House Garden at Morville Hall, about 12 miles (19km) north-east of Diddlebury, is a relatively new garden, begun only in 1989. Its ambitious aim is to tell the history of English gardens through a sequence of separate gardens in the style of different periods. It ranges from a turf maze through a medieval cloister garden and Elizabethan knot garden to a Victorian wilderness garden, to name but a few. Sweetly scented old roses are a particular speciality.
What to lookout for: St Peterâs Church at Diddlebury has a Saxon nave, its north wall constructed of herringbone masonry, which was the style favoured by the Saxons. The north doorway is typically Saxon, and there is a Saxon window. The tower also seems to be partly Saxon, though even the experts are unsure. Do go inside - very few churches of this kind survive in England
Where to eat and drink: The Sun Inn at Corfton is in just about every pub guide you can think of and has been voted best village pub in the county. It has a friendly atmosphere, a large garden with play area and its own brewery. It also acts as a useful tourist information point (a mini version of a tourist information centre).
Directions:
Turn left out of the car park along the lane. When you come to a junction, turn left again, signposted âMiddlehopeâ. Keep straight on at the next, signposted âUpper Westhopeâ, where the road becomes a track and soon bends left towards a house. Enter a gate on the right instead and join a grassy bridleway that soon enters woodland. Keep straight on at two cross paths.
The bridleway emerges into pasture; keep straight on along to the corner. Go through a gate and turn right on a field-edge path, which soon becomes a wide track.
After passing a cottage, and with a group of barns ahead, look for blue arrows that direct you sharp right through a gate. Turn immediately left and walk above Corfton Bache, a deep valley, until more blue arrows direct you zigzagging down into the valley. Follow it to the road at Corfton and cross to a lane opposite.
As the lane degenerates into a track, look on the left for an iron kissing gate. Cross cattle pasture to a prominent stile at the far side. Cross a farm track and walk to the far right corner of an arable field.
Go through a gate, then a little way along the left-hand edge of another field until a gate gives access to parkland. Head in the direction indicated by the waymarker. St Peterâs Church at Diddlebury soon comes into view, providing an infallible guide.
Cross two stiles at the far side of the park and go straight on down. Cross a track to find a footbridge and a path into Diddlebury. Turn right, then left by the church. Join a footpath which passes to the right of the village hall, then goes diagonally right through the school, to stiles immediately right of the buildings. Cross fields to the road. Cross to the lane opposite, forking right after a few paces.
A footpath leaves the lane on the right, almost opposite Chapel Cottage. This is where you turn off for Walk 19. Otherwise, continue up the lane.
At a junction at the top of the hill, keep left, still on the lane. As the lane reaches the valley bottom, turn left on a stony track, Dunstanâs Lane, soon reaching a ford. Follow it, with waymarks appearing, to the Middlehope road and turn left. Keep straight on at a Y-junction. Turn left on a footpath with Shropshire Way sign. The sometimes muddy path leads through the woods back to the picnic site.
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ChristopherWard on scottexservices.com