Today’s Treasures – Happy New Year

A new year – a new start – January is about looking forward – to Spring – to new beginnings – the trees reawakening with the lengthening days, new lambs in the fields, snowdrops in the woods and the birds in their bright spring colours getting ready for courtship.

North Shropshire has some beautiful places to go for a walk – Prees Heath Common, Whixall Moss, Ellesmere and Colemere, Whittington castle and Brown Moss – take some corn or bird food and feed the ducks.

We are so lucky to have the meres and mosses close by – with their easy walking and beautiful views. There are also several interesting canal walks along the Llangollen canal – including the staircase locks at Grindley Brook. The Whitchurch arm of the canal – is now abandoned but continues in a beautiful walk through Whitchurch Country Park – as does the disused canal at Dobson’s bridge – which the swans have now colonised making their nests there each year.

Several paths cross North Shropshire – The Sandstone Trail, the Shropshire Way – and Offa’s Dyke is on the Welsh border.  Whitchurch Walkers organise regular walks locally: www.whitchurchwalkers.co.uk as do Prees Walking Group – which you can find on Facebook.  www.shropshiresgeatoutdoors.co.uk has lots of great walks – which include some historical information as well as access details.

Get 2022 off to a happy, healthy start by enjoying our beautiful countryside and treading in the footsteps of historical figures that have walked before us – right back to King Offa at Whittington Castle; the commoners who dug peat for a living on Whixall Moss – and the famous names – Charles Darwin – the naturalist born in Shrewsbury who studied the geology of Llanymynech Rocks; Randolph Caldecott, born in Chester but who created his illustrations for ‘The House that Jack Built’ whilst working in Whitchurch. They all found inspiration from our Shropshire hills, rivers, woods, meres and mosses.

Published in the January edition of the Whitchurch Gossip