Wenlock Edge Shropshire
Wenlock Edge is a limestone escarpment extending approximately fifteen miles through the south Shropshire countryside from Much Wenlock to Craven Arms, a wooded ridge of Silurian limestone whose combination of the ancient woodland, the far-reaching views westward toward the Welsh hills and the exceptional geological and ecological interest of the limestone habitats makes it one of the most distinctive and most rewarding walking landscapes in the English Midlands. The National Trust manages large sections of the Edge and the Wenlock Edge Walk provides the framework for exploring its full length. The woodland of Wenlock Edge, predominantly ash with field maple, wych elm and other characteristic limestone woodland species, is one of the finest examples of ancient limestone woodland in the Midlands, its flora reflecting centuries of traditional coppice management. The characteristic limestone woodland ground flora of dog's mercury, sanicle, wood anemone and the rare limestone polypody fern creates a botanical interest of considerable quality, and the spring display of bluebells and wood anemones is among the finest in Shropshire. A E Housman used Wenlock Edge as one of the principal landscapes of A Shropshire Lad, the 1896 collection of poems that established the melancholy pastoral character of Shropshire in the literary imagination. The Edge appears in several poems as a place from which the wider country can be seen and the transience of human life contemplated, giving this particular landscape a literary resonance that adds to its considerable natural quality.