Day 4 - Clun to Ludlow
As my dad writes…
I awoke to a warmer start than he did. The Old Mill doesn't provide meals and I hadn't brought anything for breakfast so a kind lady staying there gave me a bowl of her muesli. A few spoonfuls in and I remembered how utterly joyless muesli is and was forced to labour through the whole bowl out of politeness. It turns out she is an accomplished bell-ringer who, whenever she travels the country, contacts the local churches beforehand and asks if they'd let her ring their church bells, and they are almost always happy to do so. "And why not?", I thought.
I then explored Clun and as my pictures show it was exactly as dad described.
And now the answer to a mystery... why it is that on a walk around Wales I am spending the first week in Shropshire? The reason is that's exactly what my dad did, and here's why:
Today my route also took me through the four sleepy Cluns, but instead of taking the main road which isn't great for pedestrians, I followed footpaths marked on the OS map which ran parallel on either side of it. My first Clun already ticked off, I took a gentle path through Sowdley Wood towards the second.
Clunton turned out to be a smaller village than Clun, with a church, a pub and a phonebox. I had a brief look in at two of these as the pub wasn't open yet.
I then continued along the main road uneventfully until Purslow, where I sat for a moment outside the Hundred House, which still looked like a decent public house almost a hundred yards after it came recommended to weary travellers in The Shropshire of Mary Webb.
A short footpath straight through somebody's back garden and across a field led to Clun #3 aka Clunbury, an even smaller village with a smattering of nice old timber framed houses, a handsome family of geese frolicking in the river, a small church and the happy sight and sound of children playing in the primary school playground.
Taking a footpath a short climb up through woods led me to the top of Clunbury Hill, where I took a break and lay down in a green meadow with beautiful views and felt utterly inspired by the wonderful and magical land that we are blessed enough to be in. I may be Scottish and there is a greater wild beauty up in the Highlands but England cannot be beaten by its green and pleasant landscape like this.
Down the other side of the hill I crossed a bridge over the Clun at a point that was once presumably forded to give Clungunford aka Clun #4 its name. This was the smallest and quietest Clun yet, whose chief attractions were a farm, church and a bus stop.
I can now say that I have been to the four quietest Cluns in the world, and they are indeed very quiet, in fact they get quieter the further you get from the main Clun. As Housman says:
In valleys of springs and rivers,
By Ony and Teme and Clun,
The country for easy livers
The quietest under the sun.
Now at this point I had a dilemma as I was in a tremendous amount of pain with every footstep. I am the first to admit that I made an enormous mistake in thinking that the barefoot shoes I had worn successfully during short walks for several months would take me 500 miles. It turns out we wear shoes for a reason. Since I stated the walk I had been putting up with increasingly severe pain in my feet and legs, and by the time I'd climbed Clunbury Hill it had got totally unbearable. The short walk down was agony. I decided that at this point that I would rather be able to continue on with challenge than risk injuring myself at this early stage of such a long adventure, so I caught the last bus of the day (at only 2.30pm!) the last few miles to Ludlow where I bought a new decent pair of walking shoes from an outdoor shop and ceremoniously threw my horrendous foot-destroying barefoot shoes in the first bin I could find. Almost instantly my feet began to thank me, although it took several days before the pain fully wore off.
This shortcut meant missing out on Craven Arms but as my dad and everyone else I spoke to had agreed upon, I wasn't missing out on much as it's apparently a complete dump.
Back to 1972:
Sadly Ludlow's youth hostel is long closed down however not only did my dad mention The Feathers Hotel in his journal but he also brought home a postcard featuring it which survives alongside the other postcards he sent home. So I thought it made sense to stay there myself. The pictures don't do it justice. It is GNARLY in the extreme. The intricacy of the carved timbers make it a rightly celebrated building, and the interior of the entrance hall and bar/restaurant are in keeping, although my room was that of a modern generic chain hotel room in a rather jarring contrast to the frontage. Nonetheless it was very comfortable and the building really is so fantastically gnarly that I had to forgive the management for going down the plain modern route, but if I ran the place I'd make the rooms a lot more witchy.
The restaurant looked good but too formal and pricey for a scruffy hiker so I wandered a short distance and ended up in Ye Olde Bull Ring Tavern where I dined on ale and scampi. I had a short evening walk round the town and on a whim popped into yet another old timber-framed pub, The Rose and Crown, where I quickly found myself drawn into the nightlife of Ludlow by a motley crew of locals. When we finally parted company at chucking-out time, Ludlow looked wonderful lit up at night and I was glad that my hotel didn't have a 10.30pm curfew!
