Chapter 19: All Around The Wrekin

July 2026.  Since Covid, I’ve been on 59 dedicated trigspeditions, the vast majority of which have been memorable for very good reasons.  So I asked myself, where can I go that would make my 60^th roadtrip stand proud among the best of them?  My favourite memory so far is reaching the Worcestershire Beacon in time to see the sun creep over the horizon…  so let’s do something like that again!
 
I don’t think I’ve ever driven on five different consecutive motorways before; nor have I ever visited the fair county of Shropshire.  The Wrekin is not a difficult location to drive to, being a short distance from the end of the M54, and if you’re lucky (or early) enough, there’s free parking to be had along the road beneath the hill.  Now I know where I want to go, can I find another dozen or so pillars in the vicinity that would make this a worthwhile trip?  I screengrabbed a map of the area and looked up each blue triangle in turn on Trigpointing UK.  Some were destroyed; some were unlikely; some were undesirable… but there were certainly enough that were both easily gettable and sufficiently interesting, and they seemed to describe a circle around The Wrekin itself.  Some of my chapter titles are a bit tenuous; this chapter’s was a shoo-in long before I’d written a single word of it.
 
For most of my trigspeditions I ensure I have an early night before getting up in the small hours to make the most of the daylight – especially necessary in winter when the evenings draw in.  But dawn in July is a lot earlier than dawn in October (the month I visited Malvern, back in Chapter Ten); for this trip I wasn’t going to have an early morning start – I was going to have a late night one!  I imagined I would have the road network all to myself; even though the traffic was much, much lighter than I usually experience, I was surprised by the number of (mostly) vans and lorries I shared the motorways with that night.  For me, night time driving is an occasional novelty; I can’t imagine how much you’d have to turn your life upside-down to do it for a living.  The less traffic I encounter, though, the happier I am.  When I’m driving it’s not the weather or the state of the roads that I fear – I’m fairly confident at navigating whatever gets thrown at me.  It’s other drivers.  They’re always the least predictable element of any journey.  So I enjoy my trips far more when I’m up before everyone else – the world is so much quieter (and prettier) at six o’clock in the morning.
 
By six o’clock in the morning on July 20^th, I wasn’t tramping up The Wrekin – I was on my way back down!  I’d parked up in the layby beside the footpath at quarter past three, and set out straightaway along the track, flashlight in hand.  2980 Wrekin is the first (and so far only) pillar I’ve bagged by the light of a torch, but knowing that the initial section of the long stony track to the top of the hill zig-zags through uneven woodland, I figured (rightly) that a flashlight would be essential if I were to keep my balance and find my way in the pitch black of the middle of the night, with whatever moonlight there might have been blocked out by the treetops.  After the first hairpin bend in the track, my light lit up a pair of deer who seemed startled that somebody should be making his way up the path at such a ridiculous hour.  I stood and watched them, and they stood and watched me before just nonchalantly wandering off into the trees.  On every other occasion I’ve encountered deer, they’ve been skittish creatures that run a mile at the first hint of a human being.  These were remarkably un-bothered by my presence, though, and I’d see a few more on my way back down, completely ignoring everyone around them.  They’re obviously very used to tourists – I’ve never seen deer so fearless before. 
 
Passing the Halfway House, a café in a former hunting lodge that serves breakfast at a far more reasonable hour than this, I knew I had to turn left to stay on the path as it joined the ridge.  It took me a little while to make out the route in the dark, but my torch lit up a wooden sign nearby, which clearly indicated the routes that led “This Way” and “That Way”.  Very helpful. 

Ridge duly joined, I continued to tramp up the steep and rocky track for the best part of a mile, as the trees slowly parted to reveal the sky.  Rabbits scurried across my path, freezing still whenever they got caught in the beam of my torch.  The red lights on the transmitter at the summit reassured me I was getting closer, and an information board and the “Heaven’s Gate” hillfort entrance served as useful landmarks.  And before long, I could see a couple of bumps on the horizon – a toposcope straight ahead of me, and the pillar to the left of it.  It had taken me three quarters of an hour, but here I was at the very top of The Wrekin, just as the sky at my back started to turn blue with the dawning of the new day.  I put my flashlight down on the toposcope and sat beside the pillar to catch my breath.
 
Despite being in the middle of the great heatwave of 2026, this particular morning wasn’t clear and sunny – there were patchy clouds across to the east, through which the sun tried valiantly to make an appearance, and whilst I still took a large number of photos, the best ones were of a dramatically decorated sky above a misty rural landscape.  The sheer golden glory of my morning on Malvern was not matched, but the journey was still absolutely worth it for the peace and silence of the location and the incredibly far-reaching view which stretched for miles and miles – on a clear day, the toposcope claims I’d actually be able to see Malvern from here (but then it also makes that claim about Snowdon, which has since been debunked).  The rocky outcrops and steep falls either side of the ridge provided a very beautiful backdrop from which to sit and watch the sky slowly lighten and turn all sorts of pastel and watercolour shades.  It was, by any measure, a very beautiful morning.
 
As for the pillar, since 2022 it has sat on a wide plinth covered in individually hand-crafted tiles, many of which celebrate the area.  This artwork was installed for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, some 45 years after the toposcope was commissioned for her Silver one.  (I did not check the transmitter to see whether it also marked a royal jubilee!)  It’s a wonderfully unique artwork, and I hope it lasts on this magnificent hilltop for tourists and trigpointers and locals to enjoy for many years to come.  Not all trigpoints are equal; this one really is a must-see.  It would be hard to beat, and I had no expectation that anything else I bagged today would come close to it.  However, I would later be proved wrong on that score.
 

The early morning ramblers had started to arrive by the time the sun was fully risen, so I made my way back down the hill, stopping off to photograph the information board and This Way/That Way sign en route, and pausing once again for the deer to cross the path.  Pretty much everyone I met coming the other direction said hello or exchanged pleasantries as I passed them.  This does not happen back home!  Shropshire is almost as far north as I’ve been in search of trigpoints, and it always seems the further north I travel, the friendlier people become.
 
I saw very few people for the rest of the day, though, as I circumnavigated The Wrekin to bag a further twelve pillars.  S1913 Wrockwardine Wood and S1912 Overley Hill were both quick and easy bags, but in very different locations.  The former was just off the path a few metres into a dark and dense woodland that ran behind a housing estate.  The pillar itself was a bit grimy, and acted as a memorial to someone’s grandmother who’d passed several years earlier.  Her memory was preserved by a large painted rock which sat at the base of the pillar below the Flush Bracket.  The latter pillar was uprooted from its original location, presumably to make way for the A5, but was saved from destruction and relocated to the entrance of a car park on an industrial estate in Telford.  Its new custodians have painted it white and stencilled a corporate logo up one edge, and it sits proudly on guard duty beside the barrier.  Neither pillar has a view to write home about, but I was especially pleased to bag them both as they completed a run of ten consecutrigs on my spreadsheet – after the run of eleven I bagged way back in Chapter Four, this is the longest run of consecutive Bracket numbers I’ve completed.  Sadly, I’d need to go almost as far as Pontefract to extend this run of ten, and with S1903 and S1915 both having been destroyed, if I’m ever to break my record and find a run of twelve I’m going to need to look at a different run of numbers entirely.  The run of eleven from the South Downs remains unthreatened for the foreseeable.
 
S1919 Monument Hill is another towering landmark.  This is a rocky ridge that forms the centre of Lilleshall, a short distance to the north east, and is topped by a massive obelisk raised in memory of a much-loved former landowner by his tenants.  It contains a tribute on one face, an inspirational quote on the opposite face, and a height marker at the top of the steps that lead to its base.  It’s a truly impressive structure, visible from miles around and offering a similarly expansive view which would be a lot more impressive to anyone who hadn’t been on top of The Wrekin a couple of hours earlier.  The over-enthusiastically painted trig point a few metres away is absolutely dwarfed by comparison.
 
When the Ordnance Survey constructed their network of trig pillars, they had help in Shropshire from the Royal Engineers, who assisted with the building of fifteen of them.  A unique feature of these pillars is that they were built with a rectangular indentation above the Flush Bracket, in which a stone rendition of their regimental crest was to be placed.  Well, that was the idea…  for reasons unknown, only eight of the fifteen actually have crests, and annoyingly neither S3093 Shray Hill nor S3123 Hanging Hill are among them.  The first two pillars I’ve bagged with Royal Engineers’ recesses on them, the former sits on a surprisingly well-defined PROW across a cropfield, where it is in constant use as a toilet by the local birdlife.  I’ve seen painted pillars that are less white than Shray Hill.  The latter was a far more pleasant experience, occupying a clearing beside the Shropshire Way, a beautifully maintained woodland bridleway that offered a decent walk from the road.  The location looked especially scenic in the golden sunlight which by this stage had pretty much chased away all the clouds and was now delivering 2026’s usual sweltering temperatures.  I was very grateful for all the woodland pillars on this trip, as I knew the shade would keep me cool.
 
And the most beautiful wood of the day was next on my itinerary.  I groaned as I guided my poor little car down a succession of narrower and bumpier single-track roads, twisting and turning their way through the hedges and farmsteads to the base of Lodge Hill, where a car park (really just a glorified layby) had been carved out at the end of a steep hillside bridleway.  My instructions read “follow the bridleway for 1.3km”.  I looked at the gradient and groaned… and then, after a quick gulp of water, set off in search of S2310 Causeway Wood.  A narrow path branched off the bridleway to the right and followed a crumbling drystone wall up the ridge, over roots and stones, and past boulders and knobbly trees.  Not for the first time, I’m minded to use the word ‘fairytale’ to describe this wood, as it very much resembled something from a picture book as the narrow trail wound its way up and down (mostly up) and around the trees and ferns that enclosed it.  A hidden path from a little-used bridleway off a narrow and obscure z-road… nobody, but nobody is going to encounter me here, and they’re all missing out on one of the most attractive woodland walks I’ve ever been on.  The stone wall disappeared into the shadows for a while, sometimes emerging covered in moss, sometimes emerging through vast patches of bracken.  I knew that the pillar sat beside the wall, but I didn’t know which side, and I was quickly losing track of how far I’d walked.  I periodically stopped to check the wall for concrete whenever the path levelled out a bit, but it didn’t seem to matter how much I’d ascended, there always seemed to be another uphill section a little further along which, whilst tiring, reassured me that I hadn’t yet walked past my objective.  As the tall brown trees on the right began to thin out, I got an idea of how high I’d climbed as the ground that side of me quickly dropped away.  I stopped for breath where the sunlight broke through the leafy canopy in a flat area just before another rise in the trail, thinking all the time that surely I’ve walked my kilometre-and-a-bit by now…  Stepping over more roots, the drystone wall on my left came into view through the trees once more, and at the top of the rise the sun gleamed off the stones, now free of moss.  I hauled myself up towards it and caught my breath as the treeline suddenly stopped and gave me my first real view from the hill.  This is why I do this hobby.  In the brilliant sunlight, across the wall and beyond the ferns, I could see fields and hedges and farms decorating a wide valley that stretched all the way across to the Welsh mountains on the horizon, and with The Lawley and Caer Caradoc rising up out of the ground on the left.  It was stunning – right up there with The Wrekin, one of the finest views of Britain I’ve ever enjoyed.  I watched a Peacock Butterfly settle on the wall beside the pillar… oh yes, I’d been quite distracted – I’m supposed to be here in search of the trigpoint, aren’t I?  I’d almost overlooked it as I marvelled to see such a fabulous, glorious view.  I could stay here just gazing at this sight for hours, I really could.  And it's such a peaceful and undisturbed location, too.  I bet The Wrekin is swarming with tourists by now.  You’re all missing out, you know.  This is where it’s at.  And it’s all just for me (and the butterfly).  I’m in Heaven and I don’t want to leave.  
 
I stayed an hour and reluctantly tore myself away, knowing that the remoteness of the location meant I was unlikely to ever return.
 
Onwards – I’ve still got more pillars to bag.  11444 Mogg Forest was disappointingly devoid of cats – or indeed anything else pleasant.  This overgrown woodland was full of brambles and nettles, and stank of manure.  The path led the wrong way – to access the pillar I needed to be on top of the hillside field beyond the brambles and barbed wire that stretched out beyond the path, so tantalisingly in view, but all too impassable at the height of July.  Eventually, a very shoddily maintained stile led into the field at its lowest point, and the source of the smell was revealed – a massive great pile of the stuff sat right opposite.  Well, at least I’ve got a landmark to locate the stile with on my way back.  When I climbed back up the hill, I found this pillar was slowly being overwhelmed by a thick fieldside hedge, and that the Flush Bracket was facing the wrong way and could not be reached.  There was no respite in the field from the blazing sunlight, and I was a sweaty wreck when I eventually made my way back to the car. 

S1934 Netchwood Common was a roadsider, but was just the wrong side of a temporary wire fence that marked the boundary of the grounds of a water tower that was undergoing a spectacular Grand Designs style makeover.  The landowner was present as I pulled up, but he was quite happy to let me take selfies with the strange concrete block that he was slowly using to pile industrial rubbish against. 
 
And then came S1931 Bridgnorth, which I’d been particularly looking forward to bagging.  I should’ve taken the hint and turned back when I saw the A458 was closed.  I thought I was clever for improvising a diversion through the centre of Bridgnorth, until I realised that everyone else had had the same idea, with the added advantage that they, being local, knew where they were going.  I sat in the jam, frustrated, for several minutes before finally finding Lodge Lane which ran beneath the woodland PROW that led to the town’s trig pillar.  Pulling up in a nearby cul de sac, I trudged up to the kissing gate at the far end which led to the field below the trig, and hacked my way through the long dry grass in search of a path up to the treeline.  There didn’t seem to be one…  well, apart from the very steep dusty trail that runs up the hill to the base of the dangerous-looking sandstone cliffs at the end.  I steadfastly refused to look down or even entertain the merest notion of vertigo.  This isn’t High Peak or Cley Hill.  A metal gate had been placed by the edge of the cliff, right below a large tree whose exposed roots I could use to haul myself up to the PROW up above it.  Small problem: some character – not the word I was going to use, but it starts with the same letter – had wrapped the gate in barbed wire.  I had to edge oh-so-carefully around it, sliding around on the dry and dusty ground, and thinking all the while as I pulled myself up to the tree that if I slipped and fell, the gate would doubtless catch me and rip me to shreds.  I was not wearing my battledress.  Failure is not an option.  Breathing a sigh of relief as I scrambled up onto the PROW, I saw the pillar through the vegetation at the edge of a small clearing on top of the cliff.  The view of the town below, framed by a couple of young trees, was extremely pretty, but I didn’t dare venture too far from the footpath as the ground sloped down towards the unguarded cliff edge, and I didn’t fancy risking a fall from so high up.  I was clearly not the only person to have visited the trig, though, as evidenced by the sweet wrappers stuffed in every sight hole, and the litter that was strewn liberally around its cracked base.  It’s like the people of Bridgnorth have gone out of their way to make bagging this trig as unpleasant an experience as possible.  Well, now I’m actually on the PROW, perhaps I can find an easier route back down to the field.  After a lot of walking back and forth and all around the… er, houses, I learned that no such alternative existed, unless I wanted to try my luck with an overgrown barbed wire fence about a hundred metres along.  The online community calls these things “leg length checkers” – they’re approximately crotch height, so if your legs are too short…  you get the picture.  Well, it was either this or the barbed gate back by the cliff, and I didn’t fancy that again.  Wishing I’d taken my battledress out of the car so I could throw it over the spikes (a tried and tested method of scaling leg length checkers), I hauled my right leg up to the top of the fence and figured I could probably just about get over if I held down the top wire as far as it would go.  Small problem – I was on the side of a hill, and the ground the other side of the fence was somewhat lower down.  I found a crumbling log on the ground and dropped it over the fence, then tested it with my nettlewhacker.  It was a little wobbly, but it might just take my weight and save me from disembowelment.  You know I’m sure I once promised myself I’d never do anything this stupid again…  I swung my right leg over the fence, pressing as hard as I could on the top strand of wire.  The log held firm, so I gripped the fence post and swung my other leg over.  And then it slipped from under me, but by that time I was clear of the barbs.  I seethed and fumed as I returned to the car, cursing whoever was responsible for fencing off the path so comprehensively, whilst leaving the dangerous cliff edge exposed.  Bridgnorth hates trigpointers and I hate Bridgnorth; this is one pillar I’m very glad I’m unlikely to ever return to.
 
I didn’t think S1988 Arlescott would improve my mood any, but my final pillar of the day proved surprisingly easy.  However much you prepare for bagging these pillars, you never know what you’re going to get until you get there.  Trigpointing UK showed a grubby pillar overwhelmed by trees and bushes by a fence that encircled a reservoir, and the logs from previous baggers were somewhat less than enthusiastic about its accessibility.  I donned my battledress and prepared myself for a crawl through the spiky undergrowth.  I didn’t need to: the pillar sits in the middle of a shady PROW.  Narrow, yes, and with overhanging branches that need ducking under, but nothing that required more than a token half-hearted swipe from my walking stick, if that.  It was a very grubby pillar with some chobbling on one corner, and the dimness of the light blurred my photos a little, but it certainly didn’t give me the challenge I’d been led to expect. 
 
I thought The Wrekin would be the undisputed highlight of my day and that Causeway Wood would be nothing special.  I thought Bridgnorth would be a joy to bag and Arlescott would be an absolute bugger.  Even after mounting 60 trigspeditions and bagging 720 pillars, I still say however much you plan and prepare, you can never be sure exactly what you’re going to find.