![]() John Vidal, former Guardian environment editor and author of McLibel: Burger Culture on Trial Nettleton Valley, Lincolnshire Wolds We make do with a stroll back, picking mistletoe and looking forward to a pint and warm pud at the centre. More challenging would be to cross the heather moorland of the Long Mynd to the mysterious Stiperstones hill and its burial mounds, or follow the whole Shropshire Way. It’s an easy introduction to the unappreciated Shropshire uplands. These are AE Housman’s “blue-remembered hills”, his “land of lost content”. You can see Coalbrookdale, where the industrial revolution got going, and beyond it Birmingham. The Welsh borders are spread to the west, the spires and fields of the Midland plains to the east. High on the ridge, we sip our soup under the old crab apple trees beside the 25-metre stone tower. Evans has seen polecats, even a pine marten up here, but all we see is a fox, and kestrels mewing as a cold front pushes in. The path leads over river meadows, down empty lanes, then steeply up through muddy woods to Wenlock Edge itself. Start with tea at the Discovery Centre and check the recommended figure-of-eight route heading to and from Flounder’s Folly on Callow Hill. Pack soup, cheese and a copy of How To See Nature by the Bard of Wenlock Edge and Guardian diarist Paul Evans. Start & finish Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre Distance/time 6 miles/3½ hours ![]() Find a winter walk near you at /winter Stuart Maconie, DJ, TV and radio presenter and author Shropshire Hills During the Festival of Winter Walks, Ramblers groups across the country are offering hundreds of free walks of varying lengths and difficulty levels. Come with a friend, or maybe come and make some new ones along this journey through the heart of much mythologised and maligned “Middle England”. Ramblers GB, of which I’m delighted to be president, has themed its Festival of Winter Walks (runs till the end of January) around the idea of combating loneliness and promoting the mental health benefits of walking. Now an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), that designation and Elgar’s sublime musical ad campaign for the hills means you’re unlikely to have them to yourself.īut that’s not such a bad thing. People have been enjoying these hills for recreation since William Langland immortalised the view as “a fair field full of folk” in his Middle English epic Piers Plowman. The Nags Head in Great Malvern is one of the most popular watering holes on the northern stretch cask ales, open fires, all the essentials. But you can break it into nice bite-sized chunks to suit, as there are plenty of escape routes back to the pubs of Worcestershire and Herefordshire for a warming midwinter dram. And, of course, it isn’t circular you’ll need transport at each end. It’s nine miles of undulating ridge which can feel exposed even on the mildest of days and there’s a deal more “upping and downing” than you might expect. ![]() Walking the entire length of the Malvern Hills in either direction – heading north from Chace End or south from North Hill – is not to be treated lightly.
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