The Stiperstones and Caer Caradog

The Shropshire Hills were an old haunt of mine many years ago when I lived in Bayston Hill, just outside Shrewsbury, and a trip back there was well overdue. Or two trips actually – for the Stiperstones near Minsterley (which I’d visited a few times before but had forgotten how spectacular they are) and for Caer Caradog near Church Stretton (which I’ve driven past many times on the way to Carding Mill Valley and Long Mynd, but bizarrely had never been to).

That’s the correct welsh spelling of Caradog by the way, not the anglicised Caradoc that Shropshire Hills AONB and Ordnance Survey use. But either way the name is a legacy of the celtic history of this area, which sometimes feels as if it’s got stranded the wrong side the border, but is just a reminder of how lines have shifted in the past, and that much of what we now call England once spoke Brythonic, the ancestor of Old Welsh.

Caer Caradog was a pleasant surprise and more impressive than expected – for the ‘Caer’ or Hill Fort and its ramparts which are more obvious than many (including Pen y Cloddiau in the Clwydians) but also for the superb views across The Lawley towards the Wrekin and most of North Shropshire.

But both days reminded me of how vast the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is, and how much there is to explore, and I can feel a few more trips coming on this summer.