For an OS map of today's walk (7.30 miles; 11.75 km; 637 ft total ascent), click here.
Today we walked to Benthall Hall, a National Trust property, before dropping down to Ironbridge Gorge, "Valley of Invention," where significant sites related to the Industrial Revolution are located.
The Fox Inn provided us with a solid breakfast—scrambled eggs and sausage for Ken, and an egg and bacon brioche for me. We headed out shortly after 10:00 a.m., after Olivia kindly filled Ken's water bottle with ice and water.
We loved looking at the buildings and streets of Much Wenlock. It is a pretty town, and we would have enjoyed more time there. We went into the church but didn't stay long as we didn't want to interrupt the prayer time that they were having.
We stepped outside the church and had the first of many times of seeing that it was raining and putting on our coats and/or pack covers. We headed out down a path from a car park that was on the Shropshire Way, but it didn't feel right to Ken when we got to a place near a recreation field. Ken asked some walkers with a dog, and they directed us back to the car park and along a different section of the trail.
We passed a father and teenage daughter with heavy camping packs. He was clearly teaching her outdoors skills, including orienteering. They took a different path from ours.
We passed gorgeous Downs Mill, a lovely home which had an amazing garden. After some road walking in the rain and a stiff uphill into Wyke, we saw the father and daughter again. Ken said that he wished he could get a lesson in using a compass to orienteer with the map, and the man actually offered to teach Ken. Unfortunately we had to keep going, but we had a nice chat with him before we went on our way. He also gave us some route advice, and we've come to value such advice from "locals" very much! We walked through a farm called the Vineyards, where they were in the process of moving sheep. We took off our raincoats because we were getting hot, only to put them on again five minutes later when a stiff but mercifully brief shower hit.
We entered the woods to take a path to Benthall Hall, a smallish but historically significant stately home. We came to a junction that had a sign saying the permissive path that we were going to take was closed because of a land slip. Ken wanted to investigate to make certain that the portion of path that led to Benthall was part of the closure. It turns out that this part of the path was not closed, and we were happy to be able to walk to Benthall Hall with no difficult detours.
When we got to the drive leading to the Hall, we met a volunteer who (literally) sang out, "Where is it that you want to go?" and Ken sang back, "We're talking to you because we don't know!" Ken apologized for singing in a slightly different key, but the man said to think nothing of it. He was very helpful and oriented us to the site.
We first went to the car park to get some lunch from the outdoor food kiosk there. The car park was incredibly full because it was a bank holiday Monday. We opted to share a sausage roll, and the woman at the kiosk heated it for us. We sat at a picnic bench next to the kiosk to eat our food. I was about to eat the last piece of sausage roll, when two women with two dogs entered the nearby gate. One dog was on a lead, and the other wasn't. The "free" dog darted madly up to our table, took a quick sniff, and before Ken could ward it off, it grabbed the piece of sausage roll and ate it! The woman was apologetic and offered to buy us another one, but we said we were almost done and it didn't matter. They walked a bit further, the woman periodically shouting "Monty! Monty!" in a vain attempt to control the dog. It ran back to our table to sniff the paper plate that the sausage roll had been on, and Ken handed the plate to the woman so that the dog could follow it. When I went to the kiosk to ask about where to recycle/compost, the woman there asked what had happened with the dog. When I told her, she said that those two women came there often, and that she didn't visually recognize them, but she recognized the woman's voice shouting "Monty!" She said she would have a word with the volunteers about making sure the dog was on a lead, because there had been other incidents.
We moved on to see the front of the building and then entered. In most rooms there were volunteers who would give you information about the rooms. The man in the first room was friendly and fun to talk with. There was a woman who asked the volunteer if she could sit in a chair called "the abbot's chair." The volunteer implied that it wasn't typical, but he gave her permission. Just as she lowered herself into the chair, another visitor went "beep beep beep—security alarm!" and we all laughed. She said she felt quite regal in the chair.
Benthall Hall was an enjoyable house to tour. We liked several rooms, including a beautiful paneled room and a library upstairs which had beautiful examples of china made in Ironbridge Gorge. Historically, it was the setting for a skirmish during the English Civil War and also had 19th century tenants important in the local tile-making industry (the latter of which we would find out about the next day).
We sat for awhile in the sunshine in the garden, then left around 3:00 p.m. The weather changed and got cooler, so the coats went on again. We retraced our steps to the wood, where the path down to Ironbridge Gorge originated. The first part of the path was nice, and the rest of it would have been nice if it had been dry. But it was downhill and incredibly slippery with mud. We picked our way down slowly, the path feeling miles longer than it really was. We got to the Iron Bridge around 5:00 p.m., walked to the crest of the bridge, and then walked on a convenient disused railway path, to Jackfield, about a half-hour's walk away. The effort of managing not to slide down that muddy path took a toll on both of our feet, particularly Ken's. We got to the Half-Moon pub which was very near our Airbnb, but couldn't find our path to the B&B from there. We had a few instances of not finding the place [thanks to inaccuracies of Google maps, which is not always to be trusted!—Ken], and then we finally did. It was a nice room, though we felt that the host was unsettled by our muddy boots, which we left at the entry way.
I had made a 7:30 p.m. reservation at the Half-Moon pub, which was five minutes away, so we went to dinner. I had nachos with a lovely fresh salsa, and Ken had chicken Rogan Josh, the naan bread that came with it being a highlight for him. There was an eclectic mix of music that we enjoyed, from John Denver to Dire Straits. We then came back to the Airbnb for some much needed rest.
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