To Little Wenlock via The Wrekin on circuit

Today was essentially spent in climbing a hill, descending the other side, then walking around the edge to return to our starting point.  This isn't something we do very often; I am slow when going uphill and extremely slow when descending, so I am not now generally too fussed about getting to the top of everything. However, the Main Route of the Shropshire Way goes via the summit of The Wrekin, so that was where we went, and  I am really pleased we did; it was a lovely walk, made even better by the glorious autumnal colours.  I would however recommend going from south-west to north-east over the hill (which is what our general direction of travel on the Shropshire Way would do) rather than walking from north-east to south-west, as we did.  Richard has climbed the Wrekin before, while I was speaking at Harpur Adams College  (now University) some years ago, but this was my first time.

The  Wrekin is a prominant landmark, standing close to the M54 and rising to  a height of 407 metres from the largely flatter land surrounding it.  From its shape, I'd assumed that The Wrekin was once a volcano; apparently it is more complicated than this, though the origin of the underlying rocks is indeed volcanic. The proximity of The Wrekin to the M54 means that it is easy to get to; it didn't take us long to get there from the Shrewsbury Travelodge, where we had stayed overnight. There is a useful car park at SJ093638, though as we drove towards it there were cars and people everywhere. Oh dear, were we going to have difficulty parking? Was there a park run or somesuch?

When we got to the actual car park, as opposed to every nook and cranny on the approach to it, we found it virtually empty. So  it looks as if all the parked cars we'd passed by the road had just been as a result of people trying to avoid paying for parking (£4 for up to 12 hours, though it is less if you are only leaving your car for up to 1, 2 or 3 hours). We never found out whether there had been an event of some sort, but we suspect not. As we set off on the climb, there were others doing the same thing, some of them running, but it wasn't an issue, and it felt as if there were at least as many people coming the other way. I suspect it is just that lots of people go jogging up The Wrekin early on a Sunday morning! It was a glorious walk, climbing steadily through glorious woodland. Do keep an eye on the route though; at one point there is a good path going straight ahead, and a man who seemed to be photographing the trees went that way, but the route of the Shropshire Way to the summit was to the right.

We passed what is marked on the OS map as Wrekin Cottage, now a cafe called Halfway House. It wasn't open, and it was rather early in the walk to stop for a break in any case, but it was nice to know that we were - perhaps - something like halfway up The Wrekin. The climb hadn't felt too difficult so far, and it continued similarly - and  most of the other people on the path were friendly; just past Halfway House, one of my gloves dropped out of a pocket, and someone told me, which was very much appreciated. Just one person, a runner, was rather unhelpful in overtaking us; he stomped past on the left and headed onto a different path, splashing me with mud as he did so. However, I think he was then on the wrong path because he came past us again later. I have to admit to being somewhat amused. 

Our path took another turn, to the left this time, and lovely views opened up behind us to Wellington. We soon left the trees behind and reached  the entrance to the remains of the large Iron Age Fort on the summit, and Richard celebrated by changing his hearing aid batteries! There were still good views behind us, and slightly further on, past a tall radio mast, we reached the trig. point and toposcope and took the mandatory photos.  Most of the other people around were much younger than us, but we fell into conversation with a man who turned out to be slightly older than us. It turns out that today's climb up the Wrekin was a real trip down memory lane for him, because he was last here when an undergraduate at the University of Birmingham in 1973, when he worked on an archaeological dig at the fort.

We reached the rocky outcrop known as the Needle's Eye, and from here there were superb views in the direction we were heading and we noticed the man we'd been talking to standing taking photographs from there for quite some time. Most people seem to turn around somewhere round here and retrace their steps,  but we continued straight ahead and our descent began. It alternated between steep and very steep, so we took it appropriately slowly; after the first section we were again in pretty woodland, and I found myself clinging onto trees! There were many fewer people about now but they were all friendly and, as they overtook us, sympathised with our slow progress. The steep descent is why I suggested at the top of this page that the leg would be better walked from south-west to north-east, because I prefer steep climbs and gentle descents. However I wouldn't have wanted to miss this part; although very slow walking, the scenery was wonderful - and we got to the bottom without falling over!

I'm getting ahead of myself, Before we got to the end of our travails, the gradient eased and then we found ourselves climbing again, up "Little Hill", which is another summit on the same ridge as The Wrekin. Having climbed, of course we had to descend again, and now, not only was the gradient steep, but the path was very indistinct. We weren't sure we were going the right way, though we seemed to be tracing the right line on both the OS Maps App (on my phone) and on OpenStreet Maps (on Richard's phone) and very occasionally there were reassuring Shropshire Way signs. Eventually the gradient eased again and the path got more distinct, and we emerged onto the minor road that runs to the south of the Wrekin. We turned left and followed this for several miles towards Little Wenlock, stopping every so often to photograph the Wrekin, which looks strangely unimpressive from this angle. 

It was a quiet road and we were passed by very few cars, though occasional cyclists came past and at one point we were walking just ahead of a couple with their son, until they stopped at a house. We continued along the road until just short of Little Wenlock, where we took a footpath across fields towards the centre of the village. It was lunchtime and, delight of delights, there was a bench beside the path with lovely distant views towards the Wenlock Edge area. Little Wenlock was pretty enough, but nothing special. We would have had time to continue further along the Shropshire Way, but it would have felt like an appendix to the walk, so we decided to leave the Shropshire Way at Little Wenlock Church and head back to the car. That leaves what should be an easily achievable leg from Coalbrookdale to Little Wenlock to walk at some point in the future, perhaps using the road to create a figure-of-eight circuit.

We'd expected the road back to the car park to be busier than the one we'd followed to Little Wenlock and it was, but it was still far from busy, and this part of today's walk was therefore much more pleasant than I'd expected.  It was also easy walking. To our left,  we were now seeing the Wrekin from yet another angle, and as we got closer to the car park, we had Ercall to our right as well. Ercall is another wooded hill, presumably part of the same geological structure as the Wrekin, which we hope to explore on the next walk of our anticlockwise progression around the Shropshire Way. The car park may have been almost empty earlier on; now it was full and so we had cars waiting for our space. The Wrekin is a popular place, justifiably so on a sunny autumnal day like today.