Offa’s Dyke Path: Shropshire Hills

Saturday 27th August 2022

After my disappointment with the latter stage of my walk the day before along the Offa’s Dyke Path, I decided to change my plans for this day, which had been very ambitious with a walk of more than twenty miles. Looking at the route, I was afraid it might be through farmer’s fields the whole way, whose monoculture I find to be rather tedious unless the terrain is steep enough to excite me. The Harvey Map for the Offa’s Dyke Path has different colour coding for improved pasture, rough pasture and moorland, and this indicated that beyond the village of Newcastle the land was all farmers’ fields, but there seemed to be more appeal to the section immediately out of Knighton, a market town on the English border that I had reached on the trail the previous day. My change of plan involved catching a bus from Kington, where I was staying, but since this was not due until 10.10, so I had time for a short wander around the area, following the route of the Herefordshire Trail to the River Arrow and then back west, past the campsite and onto the Kingswood Road where the bus stop in the centre of Kington was a short distance away. Once in Knighton I made my way to the Offa’s Dyke Centre where I was able to see some information about the dyke and learn about the efforts being made to preserve the ancient earthwork.

Leaving the Offa’s Dyke Centre, I dropped down through parkland to the lovely valley of the River Teme and crossed into England and the Shropshire Hills, which are really just a continuation of the hills in the Welsh Marches. I was keen to do some walking in the Shropshire Hills so I was glad that I had elected to continue walking along the Offa’s Dyke Path into the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, at least for a while. After crossing the railway line and a campsite that at one time I had considered staying in, I started to climb steeply up the hill, which made me very hot as the sun chose that very moment to come out, though most of the morning it would remain overcast. When I mercifully reached the top, I walked through delightful scenery that looked over the Teme Valley and follows the Welsh border, though under overcast skies. The path I was following kept to the edge of the escarpment below Panpunton Hill and soon I was accompanied by the actual Offa’s Dyke as we headed north. After a brief period away from the escarpment, I came back to the edge around the dramatic gouge into the side of the hill that is Cwm Sanaham. Fortunately I didn’t have to descend by much before starting to climb up the other side to the trig point that sits at the top of Cwm-sanaham Hill.

On the descent I lost the path by keeping beside the fence so I had to retrace my steps back to the path, only to lose it again almost immediately afterwards as I followed a thin, sketchy path onto steep ground. Turning around I crossed the steep ground onto the correct, annoyingly clear path that took me down to a house, labelled on my Ordnance Survey map as Brynorgan. After crossing a road I climbed over a short ridge that was very tiring, even though it was small, so when I emerged into the field beyond I decided to stop and have my lunch while sitting on Offa’s Dyke and enjoying the sunshine. On the other side of the field I crossed a delectable wood-covered stream with hardly any water in it and soon crossed another, similar stream that had only slightly more water. It was distressing to see the efforts that sheep were making on this walk to avoid the hot sunshine, finding as much shade as they could even when this was sketchy at best. After passing Garbett Hall I joined a farmer’s track that steadily climbs the hill, which was a painful and exhausting climb in the hot weather. The track follows Offa’s Dyke but keeps away from it, running alongside, and several times crossed the dyke until eventually the gradient eased and I reached the trig point on Llanfair Hill where I decided I had had enough.

The view ahead seemed to be tedious as the trail crosses the broad top of Llanfair Hill, so I turned around and headed back along the Offa’s Dyke Path to Knighton. After many days of long, tiring walks I thought I needed a much shorter walk, so after just 4.7 miles on the trail I was heading back down the hill, but immediately I came off the trail and onto the dyke. The trail used to run along the top of the dyke, but to preserve the ancient earthwork it was moved off and onto the farmer’s track. However, there is still a right-of-way on the dyke so I followed that for the descent and enjoyed the airy feeling of walking along the top of the dyke with the tremendous scenery of the Welsh Marches to my right until eventually I returned to the Offa’s Dyke Path and completed the descent back to Garbett Hall. Normally you wouldn’t want to cover the same ground twice, but on this occasion it allowed me to see where I had gone wrong on the descent from Cwm-sanaham Hill, missing a totally blatant signpost, and also gave me an opportunity to enjoy the fabulous escarpment edge again and now in sunnier weather. It was quite hot on this walk, which didn’t help on the occasions when I was climbing and resulted in me sweating profusely on many occasions, but it was still very enjoyable.

I have not done much walking in the Shropshire Hills before and I wasn’t sure what to make of them after this walk. I like steep terrain and rock, so while, in places, there are steep gradients, unfortunately the Shropshire Hills are lacking in rock. Most of the hills are covered by farmer’s fields and their gradients are a little too gentle, but I did enjoy this short walk. I could have taken a complete rest on this day and not done any walking, but that is not in my nature, so instead I did a short walk of less than ten miles. The views may not have been overly dramatic, but they were lovely in their gentleness and perhaps that is what I needed.