B2B Day 63 On Wenlock Edge

For an OS map of today's walk (9.78 miles; 15.74 km; 697 ft total ascent), click here.

We set off for Much Wenlock this morning after a night's sleep on the best bed of the trip so far. It was an extremely comfortable firm mattress. Less comfortable was Ken's discovery that he couldn't log in to our blog. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our breakfast of hot rolls with butter and jam, cereal, and vanilla yoghurt. We packed everything including the lunch that our hosts kindly made for us—buns, crisps, and oranges. We decided not to take the tomatoes as they were heavy and we would have no way of slicing them. We also left behind the Elizabeth Gaskell book I had picked up, the small map Ken had bought, and our Lurpack butter that we bought in Church Stretton to go with our toast. We said goodbye to Nicola (Beccy's mum) and the dog, and set off at 9:55 a.m. 

 

The trail was a bit damp because it had rained, but it was really nice at first. We went slowly upwards and then leveled off as the forest on our right gradually disappeared. As we were walking alongside a field, I commented that there was a high and extensive pile of manure that looked similar to the heap in John Constable's painting "Stour Valley and Dedham Church." There was a lot of straw in the pile, though, and I said, "It could be just straw." Then we drew alongside it, and Ken said, "It's definitely not just straw."

We approached Wilderhope Manor, which is owned by the National Trust but run as a YHA hostel—a hostel now only bookable by large groups, which seems to go against what the YHA used to stand for. Today it was booked for Adam and Robyn's wedding, a sign declared. 

 

Sheep showdown!

As we entered the estate, we passed fields of ewes and lambs, then went over a cattle grid and into another section which had rams, which we don't often see. Rams are physically much larger than the ewes. Ken called them "the bad boys of Wilderhope," though some seemed quite peaceful.

A ram in repose

As we came up to the manor, we saw the caterers' tent where some of the men were splitting kindling for the BBQ. There were a few people on the front terrace. A large coach backed into the narrow driveway, and we marveled that no tree branches were felled in the process! We walked around the back of the Manor and sat on the far end of the terrace, enjoying our ham and pea-shoot sandwiches and the crisps that Beccy and Nicola had sent with us. I thought the sandwiches were particularly delicious. I admit I ate more of the crisps than Ken did. He is often not hungry when walking, and I am always hungry when walking!

 

Wilderhope Manor decked out for a wedding

 

As we were on the path going away from Wilderhope Manor, we passed a couple and Ken said, "Let me guess—you're going to a wedding!" and the man replied, "Yes—it's not often you see a man in a suit and walking boots, is it?"

We arrived at Pilgrim's Cottage to find a Range Rover parked right in front of the gate that opened onto the public bridleway. One could open the gate enough to squeeze through, but a horse and rider definitely would not have been able to use the bridleway. We soon discovered that the path was perhaps blocked for good reason. It adjoined a cow pasture, and large sections of the path were submerged in a slick and slimy mixture of mud, cow manure, and water. We picked our way through a half-mile of pathway that felt like five miles. At one point, Ken was walking on grass alongside a barbed wire fence and balancing by hanging onto the fence between the barbs. We also performed some acrobatics in hanging onto a gate, opening it, and manouvering ourselves to the other side. The beautiful grassy path to Lutwyche Hall that Ken had seen in his 25-year-old guide to the Shropshire Hills must no longer exist. We didn't see the Hall at all from our path, and instead came to Lutwyche Farm. The faded footpath sign at the farm pointed to a route submerged in a foot of water surrounded by more cow muck. We elected to continue up the driveway.

The footpath we didn't take

The sign that says "Footpath" with an arrow

After a brief rest near a stone wall, we heard thunder in the distance. We went down to a disused railway path and enjoyed the solid surface and the occasional views to the west for a mile or two. It continued to be good though it got darker and darker and stormier and stormier, until we reached a gated tunnel that was extremely dark and had no path on the other side. At that point it started to rain, as the thunderstorm had finally caught up with us. We didn't go into the tunnel. We back-tracked a bit and took a steep path down to a road, where we put on our coats and pack covers as the rain intensified. We quickly reached a National Trust car park at Presthope. At the car park, we had a choice of paths, and we took the one that wasn't the Shropshire Way. It seemed to wander through the forest up and down rather than be more direct. We then came to a junction of two paths, and one path had only a National Trust waymark (which we thought would lead us back to the carpark), so we took the other path. It seemed to branch into a dead-end or go down to the quarry, so we back-tracked to the other path. 

The path alongside the quarry seemed endless. There was no place to sit down and rest, and everything was damp from the recent showers. I saw three snails, but not much else of interest. There was a sign pointing to the "Major's Leap," which has an interesting story attached to it. Then much, much later we came to another sign that pointed to the "Major's Leap," and I had the nightmare feeling that we had been going in circles because it felt as though the 2.5 miles we were walking had stretched or telescoped into 5 miles. But we had made progress alongside the quarry, so I knew we hadn't really been circling.

We knew we were reaching civilization when we began meeting people on the path who were walking their dogs. Dog-walkers generally signify that a village or town is nearby. We reached paved roads as it again began to rain heavily, and went down a street only to find it was not a through street. We backtracked and went down to the main part of Much Wenlock. We arrived at the Fox Inn around 4:25 p.m.

Our host Olivia greeted us and made us feel at home despite the horribly muddy appearance of our boots. She took us up to our room. After baths to remove the mud, I washed out a few of our clothes and hoped they would be dry by the next day (they mostly were), and Ken kindly took on the task of cleaning our boots carefully to remove the worst of the mud. We used a couple of plastic bags that I had picked up to rest the boots on, to avoid getting mud on the carpet. 

We went down to dinner at 6:30 p.m. I ordered the beef lasagne, and Ken had the "Spicy Fox," a cajun chicken burger. The food was good, but there was so much to eat, we were very full. We had a pint of lemonade each, and it was excellent. We came up afterwards and watched Antiques Roadshow. It was good to fall asleep feeling warm, clean, and dry, with hopes of a better walking day tomorrow to Jackfield in the Ironbridge Gorge.