Braving a gale, I took the Homer Head walk the other day. At first there’s little to see - a field at first appearing bare but filled with the tentative beginnings of a crop – or hear - great tits’ familiar calls are just audible above the booming wind.
Then the great spine of the Wrekin rises up dark and menacing under a blackened sky.
It’s the woods that steal the show, though. By all definitions they’re ‘species rich’ with blackthorn, hawthorn, hazel, oak, holly, pine. Gnarled beauties worthy of Tolkien’s ‘Ents’, a great lightning-struck beech, ivy filled ash perfect for roosting birds, and yew that have refused to fall onto Homer since before Homer was built. I’m rewarded by the glimpse of a deer, so slight and silent that I almost doubt my eyes as it disappears back into the trees with a single effortless leap.
Beyond, a stunning view shows why the Shropshire Hills are an AONB. The prehistoric coral sea of Wenlock Edge guards the Celtic hill fort of Caer Caradoc, and, in the foreground, the month-old Buildwas flooding and island-like villages Harley, Sheinton and Cressage. A 180 degree panorama showing 20 million years.
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