Take the Lordshill lane opposite the car park, then join a parallel footpath on the left. Rejoining the lane, cross to the site of the locomotive shed, then continue up the lane, noticing the green arrows directing you to the main sites.
Turn right on a track between the Crusher House and the Compressor House. A few paces past the Compressor House, turn left up steps. At the top, turn right, then soon left up more steps. Turn left to the Pumping Engine House, then right, and continue through woodland. A detour left leads to the smelter chimney, or it’s uphill all the way.
A sign indicates that you’re entering Stiperstones National Nature Reserve (NNR). The woods give way to bracken, broom and bramble before a gate leads to the open hill. A path climbs the slope ahead to a gate at the top.
Two paths are waymarked. Take the left-hand one, which runs between a fence and the rim of the spectacular dingle on your right. Climbing away from the dingle, bear right on a grassy ramp before meeting a stony track. Turn right. As the path climbs you can see the rock tors on the summit. The nearest, isolated from the rest, is Shepherd’s Rock.
Just beyond Shepherd’s Rock is a junction marked by a cairn. Turn left and after about 50yds (46m) fork left again. Descend to leave the NNR at a gate/stile. The path runs to the left, shortly bordered by a hawthorn hedge. You’ll soon see that this is an old green lane, variously lined by trees or a tumbledown stone wall. It runs through the tiny local nature reserve of Brook Vessons.
Keep straight ahead at an NNR sign. At the next junction, fork right to leave the NNR at a gate by a plantation. Go diagonally across a field to a track; turn right, going back across the field, through the plantation, then across pasture on a bridleway.
Fork left at a bridleway junction and continue past Lordshill Chapel to a lane. Turn right and stay with it as it swings left to Snailbeach.
At first sight it looks as though this walk will be all about industrial archaeology, for it begins at Snailbeach, formerly an important lead mine. The derelict landscape has been transformed into one of the most fascinating post-industrial sites in the Midlands, complete with engine houses, loco... sheds, compressors, crushers and tramways. There’s another sort of transformation going on near by, on the rugged moorland ridge of Stiperstones, one that aims to restore the landscape to its full glory. The quartzite rock was formed 480 million years ago. During the last ice age the ridge stood out above the glaciers and was subjected to constant freezing and thawing, which shattered much of the rock into a mass of scree surrounding several residual tors and leaving the top of the ridge jagged as a dragon’s or dinosaur’s crest. Subsequent soil formation has been so slow that much of the scree remains on the surface, largely unvegetated. Where soil has formed, it is thin, acidic and nutrient poor, sufficient only to support a limited range of plants. Over much of the summit area the vegetation is dominated by heather and whinberry, with some crowberry and cowberry. At one time, this meant that in summer most of Stiperstones, except the very crest, turned a glorious purple. Part of Stiperstones is protected, but modern agriculture and silviculture have encroached, fragmenting the ridge with areas of improved grassland and conifers so that it no longer turns so purple. However, for several years it has been the subject of the ambitious Back to Purple initiative. Thousands of conifers have been felled, including the unsightly Gatten Plantation, which lay just below the summit ridge. On the southern part of the ridge, further conifers have been cleared to reveal the jagged outline of Nipstone Rock, hidden for many years. Thousands of heather seedlings have been planted in these areas to supplement natural regeneration. Work is also being undertaken to restore and protect other habitats which lie below the summit ridge such as herb-rich grasslands, hay meadows, wet flushes and woodland. The flora of these areas includes bog cotton, heath bedstraw and the increasingly scarce mountain pansy.
Perhaps nowhere else in England will you find a county so deeply rural and with so much variety as Shropshire. Choose a clear day, climb to the top of The Wrekin, and look down on that ‘land of lost content’ so wistfully evoked by A E Housman.
Take the Lordshill lane opposite the car park, then join a parallel footpath on the left. Rejoining the lane, cross to the site of the locomotive shed, then continue up the lane, noticing the green arrows directing you to the main sites.
1 of 7
Turn right on a track between the Crusher House and the Compressor House. A few paces past the Compressor House, turn left up steps. At the top, turn right, then soon left up more steps. Turn left to the Pumping Engine House, then right, and continue through woodland. A detour left leads to the smelter chimney, or it’s uphill all the way.
2 of 7
A sign indicates that you’re entering Stiperstones National Nature Reserve (NNR). The woods give way to bracken, broom and bramble before a gate leads to the open hill. A path climbs the slope ahead to a gate at the top.
3 of 7
Two paths are waymarked. Take the left-hand one, which runs between a fence and the rim of the spectacular dingle on your right. Climbing away from the dingle, bear right on a grassy ramp before meeting a stony track. Turn right. As the path climbs you can see the rock tors on the summit. The nearest, isolated from the rest, is Shepherd’s Rock.
4 of 7
Just beyond Shepherd’s Rock is a junction marked by a cairn. Turn left and after about 50yds (46m) fork left again. Descend to leave the NNR at a gate/stile. The path runs to the left, shortly bordered by a hawthorn hedge. You’ll soon see that this is an old green lane, variously lined by trees or a tumbledown stone wall. It runs through the tiny local nature reserve of Brook Vessons.
5 of 7
Keep straight ahead at an NNR sign. At the next junction, fork right to leave the NNR at a gate by a plantation. Go diagonally across a field to a track; turn right, going back across the field, through the plantation, then across pasture on a bridleway.
6 of 7
Fork left at a bridleway junction and continue past Lordshill Chapel to a lane. Turn right and stay with it as it swings left to Snailbeach.
At first sight it looks as though this walk will be all about industrial archaeology, for it begins at Snailbeach, formerly an important lead mine. The derelict landscape has been transformed into one of the most fascinating post-industrial sites in the Midlands, complete with engine houses, loco... sheds, compressors, crushers and tramways. There’s another sort of transformation going on near by, on the rugged moorland ridge of Stiperstones, one that aims to restore the landscape to its full glory. The quartzite rock was formed 480 million years ago. During the last ice age the ridge stood out above the glaciers and was subjected to constant freezing and thawing, which shattered much of the rock into a mass of scree surrounding several residual tors and leaving the top of the ridge jagged as a dragon’s or dinosaur’s crest. Subsequent soil formation has been so slow that much of the scree remains on the surface, largely unvegetated. Where soil has formed, it is thin, acidic and nutrient poor, sufficient only to support a limited range of plants. Over much of the summit area the vegetation is dominated by heather and whinberry, with some crowberry and cowberry. At one time, this meant that in summer most of Stiperstones, except the very crest, turned a glorious purple. Part of Stiperstones is protected, but modern agriculture and silviculture have encroached, fragmenting the ridge with areas of improved grassland and conifers so that it no longer turns so purple. However, for several years it has been the subject of the ambitious Back to Purple initiative. Thousands of conifers have been felled, including the unsightly Gatten Plantation, which lay just below the summit ridge. On the southern part of the ridge, further conifers have been cleared to reveal the jagged outline of Nipstone Rock, hidden for many years. Thousands of heather seedlings have been planted in these areas to supplement natural regeneration. Work is also being undertaken to restore and protect other habitats which lie below the summit ridge such as herb-rich grasslands, hay meadows, wet flushes and woodland. The flora of these areas includes bog cotton, heath bedstraw and the increasingly scarce mountain pansy.
Perhaps nowhere else in England will you find a county so deeply rural and with so much variety as Shropshire. Choose a clear day, climb to the top of The Wrekin, and look down on that ‘land of lost content’ so wistfully evoked by A E Housman.
