Shropshire Council's Lib Dem leader condemns clearance of natural habitat at Shelve

Shelve Church, Shropshire

Heather Kidd, the Liberal Democrat leader of Shropshire Council, has spoken to the Powys newspaper County Times about the destruction of natural habitat in her large rural ward.

The Times says a field has been wholly cleared of gorse and scrub, to the dismay of people in Shelve and Pennerley.

Heather Kidd told the newspaper:

"No one seems to know who was responsible," said Councillor Kidd.

"I spoke to the planning department of Shropshire Council and as the site is not an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) or covered by any other protection, normal enforcement procedures did not apply.

"However, whoever did this overstepped the mark by fencing the whole area off, telling residents to ‘keep out’ as the land is crossed by a statutory public footpath.

"Nobody has the right to this, so I’ve persuaded the countryside department of Shropshire Council to reinstate the public footpath signs so that the public continues to have access across this land. They are also marking this as a right-of-way on the official maps.

"We now need to work with local environmental organisations and societies to see if we can find a way of preventing this sort of destruction in the future."

This saddening news story reminds me of the time I was walking the stretch of Offa's Dyke Path between Hay and Knighton (for a second time, as I had enjoyed it so much the first) and came across a field that was plastered with signs threatening walkers, even though the Path ran through it.

When I reached Knight and the Offa's Dyke Centre a day or two later, I reported the signs. They asked if I could give a map reference – and I could because I had studied for the Map Reader merit badge in the Cubs. I've appreciated the potential radicalism of the Scouting Movement ever since that day.

Anyway, this story at least gives me the excuse to post a photo of what Pevsner calls Shelve's "sweet little rubble-stone church", which dates from 1840.

A Shropshire signpost

You will find this opposite what used to be the post office at Shelve on the Shrewsbury to Bishop's Castle road.

Why I love the Stiperstones

Longstanding readers of this blog will know that I return, in thought and in person, to the Stiperstones – a range of hills in south Shropshire. When I wrote a much mourned (at least by me) column for the New Statesman website I pretended to live there. Why do these hills mean so much to me?

First, I have been going there for over 20 years: I first visited them on 3 June 1989. I can date my first visit so exactly because I recall carrying a radio in my backpack and hearing, rather unexpectedly, England play well and beat Poland 3-0, a victory which did much to ease their path to the 1990 World Cup. Goals by Lineker, Barnes and Webb. When you have been visiting a place for a long time and been happy there, then returning there, simply thinking of the place makes you happy.

Second, 20 years before I visited them I was familiar with the Stiperstones from the Lone Pine books by Malcolm Saville. My favourite children’s author (unlike Enid Blyton, whose publicist he had been) set his stories in “real places you can explore for yourself”. One of those places was the Stiperstones, although one of his sons, the late Revd Jeremy Saville, once told a meeting of the Malcolm Saville Society that he was sure that when the first Stiperstones book, Seven White Gates, was published, his father had not visited these hills. Its forbidding atmosphere was copied from the novels of Mary Webb.

Third, the Stiperstones are a striking landscape. The crest of the hills is crowned with strange rocks likes the tors of Dartmoor, one of them known as the Devil’s Chair. And when you round the corner on the way into Stiperstones village from Tankerville you encounter the “purple-headed mountains” you were promised by the childhood hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful. Let no one tell you the Midlands are flat.

Fourth, there are the remains of the 19th-century lead-minding industry. There is the great complex at Snailbeach and the remains of lesser undertakings scattered elsewhere. For a time the deposits of lead ore here were the richest in Europe, but they proved to be limited and were soon worked out.

Fifth, there is the areas dark folklore and social history. On the night of St Thomas’s Day (21 December) all the ghosts of Shropshire are supposed to gather around the Devil’s Chair. And in 1945 the death of a boy caused a revolution in the treatment of children in public care. The Stiperstones are not conventionally pretty and they can be bleak and brutal. That is part of their attraction.

Sixth, the watering holes in this remote area are far better than you are entitled to expect. The Stiperstones Inn welcomes everyone and serves food and good beer all day. Its lack of competition has not made it uncaring, like some rural pubs I could mention. And The Bog Centre, with its homemade cakes and local crafts, is surely a model for the Big Society.

The photograph shows Shelve Pool. It is not, as I imagined, a remnant of lead mining, but was dug in the 17th century as a fish pool by the More family. It can be reached only on foot, which makes the walker feel comfortably smug.

Shropshire buses in 1967

Before my New York interlude I was working through my summer holiday for you on this blog. I had got as far as White Grit on the way to The Bog and the Stiperstones Inn.

Soon I will resume that journey, but in the mean time a reader - who knows what I like - has kindly sent me an article from an issue of the magazine Buses Extra (published around 1981) which recalls a two-day wander around Shropshire that the author, Tony Moyes, took in 1967.

Discussing the route along the main road from Shrewsbury to Bishop's Castle, Moyes writes:

For the first eight miles through pleasant lowland countryside, the route was accompanied by three others: most importantly Midland Red's hourly, almost suburban offering along the A488 as far as Plox Green, beyond Minsterley. Indeed, and S14 was at Plox Green as we passed.

Secondly, A.J. Evans' Minsterley Motors' thinnish service would head off southwards from Plox Green into the hills, through the waste from the Snailbeach lead mines whose white tips could be seen glinting from the main road; then it would corkscrew high up into the tor-crested Stiperstones to a terminus at The Bog, as the blind on its OB coach would have it.

Thirdly, though diving off in a loop to serve the hamlet of Asterley on the way, Lewis of Pennerley's SB coach would then head south west from Minsterley to incorporate remote Rorrington and Priestweston on its four sorties per week to Churchstoke.

Sheer poetry.

These days the only company left is Minsterley Motors, which runs the Bishop's Castle to Shrewsbury service. But it still possible to reach remote places like Pennerley, Shelve and Bentlawnt if you arm yourself with a timetable.

You can even get to The Bog, where this photograph was taken a couple of hours after I was at White Grit.

David Aaronovitch trespasses on my manor

Photo by Sabine J Hutchinson
http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk/

I have written far too much recently about the Stiperstones and its abandoned mines - try the latest Calder's Comfort Farm on the New Statesman site.

It seems I am not the only one who likes them. In Saturday's issue of The Times David Aaronovitch wrote:

I am as captivated by the abandoned cottages and workings of the 18th-century barytes miners beside the Shropshire Stiperstones as I am by the 2,000-year-old white tombs of Turkish Lycia.

I am pleased to hear it, but he is wrong on two counts.

The remains you see today are not from the 18th century but 19th (though you can find the remains of Roman workings a couple of miles away near Shelve).

And they did not mine barytes much here until the 20th century. The remains you see today - notably at Snailbeach - date from the 19th when this part of Shropshire was a great centre of lead mining.

Now read about David Aaronovitch on University Challenge.

Bishop's Castle: Launching the bc ring

It is always nice to come across events on holiday. It doesn't quite rank with hearing Runrig play in Portree, but last night I was invited to the launch of a new long-distance footpath at Bishop's Castle town hall.

The bc ring is a 62-mile route that circles the town. The press release (PDF) on the launch describes the route:

The bc ring walk passes through some wonderful scenery starting with the well known Kerry Ridgeway and then along the world famous Offa’s Dyke and via the Shropshire Way to Clun with its majestic ruined castle.
The path continues via Hopton Castle to the top of Clunbury Hill passing through Aston on Clun with its Arbor Tree to the Long Mynd with its ancient Portway and one of Shropshire’s most rugged spots – the Stiperstones. It then drops down to the Bog where a refreshing cup of tea and cake may be enjoyed when the Bog Centre is open.
Passing by Shelve Pool the path crosses Stapeley Common with its two stone circles and much evidence of Bronze Age habitation. It continues past the hills (with an optional climb to the top) of Corndon and Roundton and across the Camlad Valley with the only river flowing into Wales from England.
The final section of the route returns walkers to the welcoming streets of Bishop’s Castle and journey’s end.

Bishop's Castle is now a Walkers are Welcome town too.

As was explained last night, the chief motivation behind Bishop's Castle seeking this status was that Church Stretton (a small town on the other side of the Long Mynd) had just been awarded it.

Never underestimate the power of local rivalry.