A gentle meander, copiously illustrated
May. 3rd, 2005 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fivemackSix weeks ago, playing around with a topographic dataset, I noticed a weird linear feature running between Craven Arms and Ironbridge.
Two weeks ago, playing around with Streetmap, I discovered that this feature was Wenlock Edge, and that there was a footpath running the length of it, a railway station at each end and a youth hostel in the middle. Such a coincidence couldn't be left alone, so I booked a night at the hostel, and on Saturday took a train to Craven Arms station via Newport, and set out on foot.
It's not the spectacular ridge I expected; it's a slightly-slanted stratum of limestone, so there's a steep ridge one side and a gentle slope the other. It was idyllic; bluebells everywhere, maybe a dozen people passed on the path over the whole day. The hostel is an Elizabethan manor-house with a splendid wooden spiral staircase.
Sunday, set off at ten in the morning, and reached Much Wenlock at about one. After a short trek along a disused railway (where I passed the following Symbol of the Clash between the Old and the New Ways), the path becomes a real ridge for a few miles, running at the edge of a quarry, with an impressive moonscape one side and wide views across to the Wrekin on the other. Much Wenlock turned out to have an impressive Cluniac abbey, with sandstone carvings as sharp 450 years after the Dissolution as the day they were carved. On through farms to Ironbridge, and into a hotel for the night; watched Dr Who before bed.
Monday, walked past old blast-furnaces and heaps of greenish-blue ceramic slag, to the Blist's Hill Victorian Village. This is Renfaire meets William Morris; full of re-enactors, but all re-enacting the roles of the senior businessman, the gentlewoman or the small craftsman. Fixed steam engines, lots of modern quarter-scale traction engines, a working replica of Trevethick's locomotive, but it was all at the single-person level, verging on the twee; no actual sign of Industry, Capital or Labour.
Back by train, via, umm, actually via the heart of Birmingham to see the new Apple store and pick up a copy of Tiger, flagrant Mac-head that I've become.
All in all, a good weekend.
Two weeks ago, playing around with Streetmap, I discovered that this feature was Wenlock Edge, and that there was a footpath running the length of it, a railway station at each end and a youth hostel in the middle. Such a coincidence couldn't be left alone, so I booked a night at the hostel, and on Saturday took a train to Craven Arms station via Newport, and set out on foot.
It's not the spectacular ridge I expected; it's a slightly-slanted stratum of limestone, so there's a steep ridge one side and a gentle slope the other. It was idyllic; bluebells everywhere, maybe a dozen people passed on the path over the whole day. The hostel is an Elizabethan manor-house with a splendid wooden spiral staircase.
Sunday, set off at ten in the morning, and reached Much Wenlock at about one. After a short trek along a disused railway (where I passed the following Symbol of the Clash between the Old and the New Ways), the path becomes a real ridge for a few miles, running at the edge of a quarry, with an impressive moonscape one side and wide views across to the Wrekin on the other. Much Wenlock turned out to have an impressive Cluniac abbey, with sandstone carvings as sharp 450 years after the Dissolution as the day they were carved. On through farms to Ironbridge, and into a hotel for the night; watched Dr Who before bed.
Monday, walked past old blast-furnaces and heaps of greenish-blue ceramic slag, to the Blist's Hill Victorian Village. This is Renfaire meets William Morris; full of re-enactors, but all re-enacting the roles of the senior businessman, the gentlewoman or the small craftsman. Fixed steam engines, lots of modern quarter-scale traction engines, a working replica of Trevethick's locomotive, but it was all at the single-person level, verging on the twee; no actual sign of Industry, Capital or Labour.
Back by train, via, umm, actually via the heart of Birmingham to see the new Apple store and pick up a copy of Tiger, flagrant Mac-head that I've become.
All in all, a good weekend.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-04 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-04 06:22 am (UTC)I believe that the forest garden on Wenlock Edge has been destroyed :-(
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Date: 2005-05-04 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-04 08:44 pm (UTC)