Today David joined us for our walk to Church Stratton, while Toby and Will were still with us.
As usual for an upcoming 50+km day, we had an earlier start and left Whictchurch heading for Church Stretton. Whitchurch is the oldest continuously inhabited town in Shropshire, although there is evidence from various discovered artifacts that people lived in this area about 3,000 BC. Flakes of flint from the Neolithic era were found in nearby Dearnford Farm.
Shrewsbury was to be our lunch stop so we headed off down a “quiet” B-road that turned out to be not so quiet at all. Fairly flat farmlands were the main view of the day, and as usual the fields of cows were much more interested in us than we were in them.
We walked through the lovely town of Wem – the name of the town is derived from the Old English wamm, meaning a marsh, as marshy land exists in the area of the town. Over time, this was corrupted to form “Wem”. This area is believed to have been settled prior to the Roman Conquest of Britain, by the Cornovii – Celtic Iron Age settlers.
As we walked into Shrewsbury, we walked along our first sighting of the River Severn (longest river in Great Britain) – we will see it again next week as we cross back from Wales. Its later Welsh name Amwythig means “fortified place”. The town centre has a largely-unspoilt medieval street plan and over 660 listed buildings including several examples of timber framing from the 15th and 16th centuries. Shrewsbury is the birthplace of Charles Darwin where he lived for 27 years.
Never ones to miss an opportunity, we passed the Shrewsbury HSBC Branch and stopped for a photo, the local team even joining in safely from behind their barrier.
Just as we left Shrewsbury we passed yet another milestone – 900 km walked so far. We then started our walk down the A49 – it was so busy that there was no opportunity for photographs – and we eventually arrived in Church Stretton safe and sound. We said goodbye to Toby and Will – huge thanks to them for joining us for a couple of days – it is much appreciated
Tomorrow we head for Leominster and a day off!