Rerouting the Shropshire Way

Ramblings

BBC

Science, Nature, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.6 • 732 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Clare meets a group of passionate walkers responsible for the redesign and relaunch of the Shropshire Way long distance footpath.

Back in 2016 they got together, in collaboration with the local Council, to reroute it and improve the waymarking. And now they have a 200 mile footpath in a figure of eight, centred on Shrewsbury.

For Ramblings they met Clare at the Benthall Hall National Trust carpark and set off on a 5.5 mile linear route crossing the world famous Iron Bridge, onto Loamhole Dingle, Braggers Hill and Little Wenlock.

Leading the way were Amanda Hartley-Newton and Audrey Menhinick (who with her late Ramblers colleague, set up the Shropshire Way Association). They, along with a handful of fellow volunteers, tell Clare what a satisfying – if challenging – project this has been.

OS MAP: OS Explorer 242 Telford, Ironbridge and the Wrekin Grid Ref: SJ 657 024 https://shropshireway.org.uk/

Presenter: Clare Balding Producer: Karen Gregor

Transcript

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0:00.0	Eleven climbers appeared to have died on the world's second highest mountain K2.
0:06.0	It was one of the deadliest days in mountaineering history.
0:10.0	Rock falls, avalanches.
0:11.0	Huge pieces of ice. All are big enough to kill you.
0:14.0	He just flew out into Devoid and he was gone.
0:17.0	How did it all go so wrong?
0:19.0	And is it really worth risking death to feel alive? Why would
0:23.2	somebody pay to go to a place called the death cell on a vacation? Extreme, peak danger. With me,
0:29.9	Natalia Melman Petrazella. Listen to the full series now. First on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:39.9	I'm staring at a cluster of snowdrops, thinking that for the first time, it really feels like spring.
0:46.5	And it's that injection of hope and joy as you look at the buds just starting to appear
0:52.3	and the colour that you know will soon be everywhere
0:54.7	because, gosh, January didn't half feel like it went on for about 67 days rather than 31.
1:01.4	Here we are though in February.
1:03.5	And on a really lovely day in Shropshire, I've come to meet a group of people who have
1:09.1	worked extremely hard to relaunch and redesign the Shropshire way, which is a long-distance path.
1:17.7	And they realised that a lot of the signposting was rather confusing.
1:21.8	I can see them gathered in the car park of Bentful Hall, which is a National Trust property.
1:31.9	There's a group of six, I think,
1:39.7	with gaiters on and walking poles in hand and rucksacks on their back. Hello, hello. I was just saying how it feels like genuinely the first day of spring, doesn't it? And you think how
1:44.0	impatient you've been all winter for just, doesn't it? And you think how impatient
1:44.5	you've been all winter for just a sign of it. And today there's just a bit of warmth in that air
	...

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