March on the Edge

A typically windswept March afternoon on Wenlock Edge. The hedgerow’s a tangled mass of hawthorn and blackthorn. Filigree leaves of varied ferns carpet the area and Jack in the Hedge is poised to spring into growth. Through the gothic tracery of bare branches, you can look along the backbone of the Edge, before oppressive pines close ranks. There, above the ominous roar of Harley Bank, I hear the shrill cat-like mewing of buzzards. Ten appear, hunting in a pack like Harris Hawks from Arizona. One turns, drops, dives, captures something, swoops off. I am once again alone.

            The path narrows, meandering around spooned out hollows, with Dog’s Mercury spearing through the fallen debris of last autumn. I spot a huge colony of Hart’s Tongue ferns clinging to a quarry face, their leaves reflecting the last of the sun and catching the percolating water. Weaving between silver birch, under a drapery of catkins I pass another huge quarry, where the strong buttress roots of yew and willow cling like talons on the precipitous Edge.    
             Everywhere the scars of industry have been stitched over by nature: limestone quarries becoming bird baths, nesting grounds and grassland. Dark, satanic remains of old quarries and kilns, alongside the green and pleasant land of Shropshire’s hedges and fields - it’s what makes Wenlock so interesting.

The Court of King Caractacus

Caer Caradoc was the legendary safe haven for the Celts and their leader Caractacus two thousand years ago. Even nowadays, looking out just as imposingly over the town of Church Stretton, with its crown of battlement-like rocks, this hill fort is far from empty.

            As I walk down the track I disturb a flock of around 100 fieldfares catching the warm February rays from their roost in the tangled branches of some hawthorns. Their grey underwings flash as they fly, like airborne mackerel. This is one of my favourite walks and I have visited this track in all seasons discovering everything from fossils to drinker moths. I leave the path and cross a field disturbing ravens picking the last off a sheep’s carcass.

            The ascent is breathtaking and so too is the view. I stand on the rocks at the height of 350m and look from Wrekin to Wenlock and Clee to Carding Mill. My first wasp of the year buzzes past alongside stubborn mounds of snow that still haven’t melted from three weeks ago. It is strangely still and warm on the leeward slopes and only as you mount the crest does the chill rush of wind hit you. The grass up here is as short as the square at Lords’ thanks to the sheep that nibble it down year in year out; the ground dry. As the sun begins to dip below the creases and folds of the Long Mynd I begin my descent back to Earth.