Walk back down the track and just before the road turn left over a waymarked stile. Walk straight on through a series of fields by a succession of stiles. Stiperstones fills the horizon. Cross a garden to another stile then continue to a gate in the far corner of the next field.
Bear slightly left, cross a track and go straight up the low-angled ridge ahead, dotted with gorse and rocky outcrops. Continue more easily along the gentler ridge then climb to the first ‘summit’, marked by a cairn. Continue along the ridge to the main summit, with another cairn.
Keep following the ridge, over another slight rise and then generally down, until a green track cuts across. Turn left on this and keep left again at the next junction by a waymark post. Continue along the track, passing another post liberally plastered with waymarks, on a slight rise.
Soon there are three more waymark posts in quick succession, keep right at the second of these, following a green track through bracken. It bends right and descends to a broad, slightly marshy saddle.
Keep generally ahead here, crossing other tracks, then keep to the left side as you go up the facing slope. Continue to the corner of a fence. It’s worth going on a little further down the fence to get even more depth of foreground in the view over Wales. Perhaps you’ll be able to spot some of those pillow mounds too (it’s hopeless when the bracken is high).
Double-back to the fence corner and down the slope, but keep right at a fork and curve around the right side of the saddle onto a broad grassy ridge, with trees to your left. Walk along here to the stone circle and continue down the main track back to the car park.
Although a short walk, in terms of value, it’s one of the best. Most of the walking is over close-cropped turf, which is one of the kindest surfaces to walk on, gradients are gentle too, and yet there is more to see and enjoy than on most walks of twice or three times the length. The walk is... entirely in Shropshire, but to get to the start, unless you take a roundabout route, you will have to pass through a small corner of Wales (a hamlet with the un-Welsh sounding name of White Grit). Nearby is Cwm Dingle – ‘cwm’ is the Welsh word for a valley cutting back into a hill, and Dingle a Shropshire dialect word meaning exactly the same thing. So it could be translated as ‘Valley valley’. Stapeley Hill’s most obvious ‘attraction’ is the Mitchell’s Fold Stone Circle, and indeed that’s what the car park sign directs you to. Thought to be at least 3,500 years old, it’s Shropshire’s best-known stone circle. However, it’s not exactly in the league of Stonehenge or Castlerigg, with only 15 stones still in place, and the tallest of those barely shoulder-high. This shouldn’t matter; it’s a lovely spot, and the lack of the crowds that often besiege grander circles gives more scope for your imagination. Ideally, bring an OS Explorer map to refer to as your eyes roam across the landscape; there’s an ancient tumulus on lumpy Lan Fawr just to the south, several burial cairns on hulking Corndon Hill next to it, and a hillfort just to the north at Castle Ring. There are also a couple of cairn sites on Stapely Hill itself, as well as some enigmatic ‘Pillow Mounds’, all of which are close to the walk route. One lies less than 50yds (46m) past the first modern ‘summit’ cairn on the ridge; it’s now visible as a low circular bank. The ‘Pillow Mounds’ shown on the Explorer map are a sign of later habitation, probably medieval. Pillow mounds are a form of artificial rabbit warren, mostly found in areas where the ground is predominantly rocky. The thin topsoil would be gathered and piled up into heaps or mounds, often rectangular and therefore resembling a pillow, to give enough depth for the rabbits to burrow into. It’s worth recalling that rabbits are not native to Britain but were introduced by the Romans and remained a very important food source through the Middle Ages. The Stapeley Hill mounds may well be allied to the fish ponds in the valley just below; these are now marked by three squarish blocks of trees, easily visible if you walk a little further along the ridge at Point 4. The stones of Mitchell’s Fold are a close-grained volcanic rock called dolerite, and would have been quarried close by. In fact, as you walk up the start of the ridge you can see a line of dolerite outcrops jutting up from the ground. These mark an intrusion, where molten rock forced its way between two layers of older rock. Because the dolerite is harder than the rocks around it, it now stands out proud of the hillside.
Perhaps nowhere else in England will you find a county so deeply rural and with so much variety as Shropshire. Choose a clear day, climb to the top of The Wrekin, and look down on that ‘land of lost content’ so wistfully evoked by A E Housman.
Walk back down the track and just before the road turn left over a waymarked stile. Walk straight on through a series of fields by a succession of stiles. Stiperstones fills the horizon. Cross a garden to another stile then continue to a gate in the far corner of the next field.
1 of 6
Bear slightly left, cross a track and go straight up the low-angled ridge ahead, dotted with gorse and rocky outcrops. Continue more easily along the gentler ridge then climb to the first ‘summit’, marked by a cairn. Continue along the ridge to the main summit, with another cairn.
2 of 6
Keep following the ridge, over another slight rise and then generally down, until a green track cuts across. Turn left on this and keep left again at the next junction by a waymark post. Continue along the track, passing another post liberally plastered with waymarks, on a slight rise.
3 of 6
Soon there are three more waymark posts in quick succession, keep right at the second of these, following a green track through bracken. It bends right and descends to a broad, slightly marshy saddle.
4 of 6
Keep generally ahead here, crossing other tracks, then keep to the left side as you go up the facing slope. Continue to the corner of a fence. It’s worth going on a little further down the fence to get even more depth of foreground in the view over Wales. Perhaps you’ll be able to spot some of those pillow mounds too (it’s hopeless when the bracken is high).
5 of 6
Double-back to the fence corner and down the slope, but keep right at a fork and curve around the right side of the saddle onto a broad grassy ridge, with trees to your left. Walk along here to the stone circle and continue down the main track back to the car park.
Although a short walk, in terms of value, it’s one of the best. Most of the walking is over close-cropped turf, which is one of the kindest surfaces to walk on, gradients are gentle too, and yet there is more to see and enjoy than on most walks of twice or three times the length. The walk is... entirely in Shropshire, but to get to the start, unless you take a roundabout route, you will have to pass through a small corner of Wales (a hamlet with the un-Welsh sounding name of White Grit). Nearby is Cwm Dingle – ‘cwm’ is the Welsh word for a valley cutting back into a hill, and Dingle a Shropshire dialect word meaning exactly the same thing. So it could be translated as ‘Valley valley’. Stapeley Hill’s most obvious ‘attraction’ is the Mitchell’s Fold Stone Circle, and indeed that’s what the car park sign directs you to. Thought to be at least 3,500 years old, it’s Shropshire’s best-known stone circle. However, it’s not exactly in the league of Stonehenge or Castlerigg, with only 15 stones still in place, and the tallest of those barely shoulder-high. This shouldn’t matter; it’s a lovely spot, and the lack of the crowds that often besiege grander circles gives more scope for your imagination. Ideally, bring an OS Explorer map to refer to as your eyes roam across the landscape; there’s an ancient tumulus on lumpy Lan Fawr just to the south, several burial cairns on hulking Corndon Hill next to it, and a hillfort just to the north at Castle Ring. There are also a couple of cairn sites on Stapely Hill itself, as well as some enigmatic ‘Pillow Mounds’, all of which are close to the walk route. One lies less than 50yds (46m) past the first modern ‘summit’ cairn on the ridge; it’s now visible as a low circular bank. The ‘Pillow Mounds’ shown on the Explorer map are a sign of later habitation, probably medieval. Pillow mounds are a form of artificial rabbit warren, mostly found in areas where the ground is predominantly rocky. The thin topsoil would be gathered and piled up into heaps or mounds, often rectangular and therefore resembling a pillow, to give enough depth for the rabbits to burrow into. It’s worth recalling that rabbits are not native to Britain but were introduced by the Romans and remained a very important food source through the Middle Ages. The Stapeley Hill mounds may well be allied to the fish ponds in the valley just below; these are now marked by three squarish blocks of trees, easily visible if you walk a little further along the ridge at Point 4. The stones of Mitchell’s Fold are a close-grained volcanic rock called dolerite, and would have been quarried close by. In fact, as you walk up the start of the ridge you can see a line of dolerite outcrops jutting up from the ground. These mark an intrusion, where molten rock forced its way between two layers of older rock. Because the dolerite is harder than the rocks around it, it now stands out proud of the hillside.
Perhaps nowhere else in England will you find a county so deeply rural and with so much variety as Shropshire. Choose a clear day, climb to the top of The Wrekin, and look down on that ‘land of lost content’ so wistfully evoked by A E Housman.
