A day out in exotic......Shropshire

First of all, thanks to both our lovely Mums for the great comments that keep us motivated to continue the blog. We are glad you enjoy it. It helps us feel closer to you and it will one day be a great diary for us to look back on.

As always, we set out reasonably early so as to get in all the things carefully planned for the day. As always, everything was much harder to find and took far longer to arrive at than was carefully but incorrectly planned, it seems that kilometres are hard to unlearn, and so it was a good job we set out early. First on the list was 'Croft Ambrey', an ancient hill where a battle took place and that we thought might be interesting even if there wasn't much to actually see. After 1.15 hrs, which I calculated should have been 45mins, we found Croft castle. This was closed for winter but the map ther told us it was a 2.5hr walk to Croft ambrey. I like a good ancient hill probably more than the next person, but 2.5hrs? Not that much.

On to Wigmore Castle, shown above because my cursor was in the wrong place when I uploaded and I dont't know how to move them without deleting and starting again and that takes a looong time. Anyway, Programme sat nav, 20 mins, and we're there. That was a little scary I have to say but sometimes luck is on our side. This was an awesome place. You have to park and walk 20 mins ish up a thin, muddy path, but it is worth every slodgy step! This 12C ruin is on private land but the owner has kindly passed it into the care of English Heritage and allows all and sundry to trek across his land. Unlike many of the buildings of old, this has been deliberateyly kept wild (perhaps as it is on private land?) which means no cars, no toilets, no info centre. The lack of all these mod cons means that as you stand amongst its broken walls, in the still, looking out over the fields below, you can actually get a sense of what it was like in days of old.

Some of you may be familiar with the first thing Glenn says whenever we stand somewhere that is so old it simply can't be comprehended...'What were they talking about?', but I don't think any of you know what my first question is..."How did they keep warm?'. Anyway, if memory serves, this was a Norman castle, owned by the same family for 400 years who came under regular attack, probably from the ousted ummmm non-Normans. Eventually in the 1600 they succumbed and the castle was destroyed leaving the ruins we see today. The walls are massively thick and the hill is so steep that it is hard to imagine anyone ever getting through the security. I think that they only lost in the end because by then someone would have been using some kind of explosives.

These steps were incredibly steep so there were some barriers to slow you down and/or stop you falling. Pity the barrier makers didn't stop to think about the people whose heads are directly in line with the little bit sticking out the end of the barrier and who have really poor spatial awareness. Besides, I have my own barrier for going behind me when we go up or ahead of me when we go down..can you guess who boys and girls? Sufficiently impressed by  the atmosphere and setting of this castle, and , having made up for the distinct lack of Croft ambreys, we headed for our next destination......a Welsh viaduct.

Over the border we went into 'boyo' country. Glenn informed me that the welsh language seemed quite literal to him , so I asked him what was literal about 'araf' the word painted on the road alongside the English 'slow'. He's still thinking about that one, or, perhaps how he can exact his revenge. Anyway, the viaduct was called Knucklas and there was a town called knucklas and as we drove past the sign that said knucklas, I told him we should be able to see it from the road. I was using our giant atlas map for this information and I suddenly saw a red line pointing from the picture of the viaduct to the town of knucklas because it was too hard to put it on the town itself...'oops' I said 'turn around' A few choice words exacted said revenge and we sped back to the turning and there it was.

It was really hard to find a parking spot in this tiny village, and even harder to climb the embankment up to the top of what appeared to be an operational railway line. A quick scramble through some barbed wire fence and some blackberry bushes saw us at the top.

Having enjoyed the view and agreed that even though we are on the 'slightly more cautious' side of 45, we will not bow to arbitrary rules, we headed down again.

From Knucklas viaduct to Clun Castle and along the way, the most adorable, curvy, cute hedge you have ever seen in your entire life...it was breathtaking.

Another excellent sat nav trip later and we were in a lovely little village with...wait for it...FREE parking for the castle. It was hidden at first behind the hill it was built on, but as we got closer, we could see great scaffolding surrounding a rather substantial section of it and were quite disappointed. I know they have to preserve these things, but couldn't they time it better so we get to see them all 'eu natural'?

Sadly, as the information board was way back at the car park, and because most of it looked like an apartment block; never mention apartments again!, I can't remember anything about this castle. A lady fell down and even though she had people to help her I spent the time worrying about her and you will be pleased to know that not climbmg on scaffolded castles is one of the arbitrary rules we do see reason to follow, so we walked around the moat and went to look for afternoon tea. What the castle lacked, the lovely old bridge had in spades; whatever that means.

Over we went and had our tea and cake in a very old place...is there anywhere that isn't very old? I am beginning to doubt it.

And off we went again. This next place, whose name escapes me, was on our map but the internet site said you can't get in as it's private property...weeeelll.....they were having work done on it and the gates were open so in we went.

Imagine owning this! Personally I was just as amazed at the still frozen lake. Do you have any idea how cold it has to be for a lake to freeze? Oh yes, that's right you do, and you didn't have a nice warm car or house to rush back to :(

And so onto the final stop for the day and Fanny once again did an excellent job. All things considered, one of the best days out navigation wise; except for 5 min from home when she told us to leave the road that Glenn knew he should be staying on but it is really hard to know when to trust yourself and sent us round in circles a few times before he knew where we were and found his own way thank you very much!. Here we come to the impressive Stokesay Castle.

English Heritage define Stokesay as 'quite simply the finest and best preserved fortified medieval manor house in England'. Can't argue with that. there are lots of pics because it has so many different elements.

The yellow part is the gatehouse/entry. This is the back of the first picture. Lawrence Ludlow, a wealthy wool merchant bought the property in 1281 as he wished to set himself up as a country gentleman. Well, we know what he was talking about; the price of wool. And, we know how he kept warm; wool jumper, sheepskin coat, boots and hat. It was built like a castle for effect, it was actually a house; I can't believe they thought about fashion a thousand years ago.

I think this giant fireplace would also have kept them quite warm.

Three floors up and still smiling, even though I had just managed to miss a step and nearly go head over. Thankfully I have learnt to hold rails, tree roots, hands, sticking out rocks etc. and haven't fallen down since my 'trip' in Carnaerfon castle in 2009. Sadly, all things must come to an end and what took us about 7 hours on Sunday has taken me 2 to present to you (just in case you ever wonder). But I will leave you with one last thing; Glenn's good deed for the day

Well it is quite old and when he noticed a bit leaning.....