Holy Austin Rock

Cloudless blue skies greeted the early bird this morning. A quicke brekkie and a few things washed and on the line, and we were out. Our destination was the National Trust estate at Kinver Edge and a mixture of interests. Kinver, lying say 20 miles to the west of Birmingham and 5 miles or so north of Kidderminster, is a weekend playground for Midland folk. Forest, heathland and a ridge walk with views. Probably a great place to fly a kite too.

As at Malvern from the British Camp car park, ten minutes effort brings the explorer out on to open topped heathland. Kinver provides a ridge walk fringed with birches. The edge runs pretty much north to south with the sandstone cliff edge dropping to the west. Trees do block the westerly view to the Shropshire Hills, but occasionally a narrow window through will be encountered, and where, in almost all cases, a bench will have been provided. To the east the scene is gentler, with the heathland gradually sloping to woodland, over the top of which there are views to the north cotswold escarpment.

The ridge walk was lovely, assisted in no small measure by the climate. A mild day, but with a propensity to get gusty. It is quite enchanting to listen to the sound the wind delivers as it gallops through the trees, and to observe the play of light and shadow as leaf and branch resist, succumb and relax. Our walk descended at the junction of south Staffordshire and north Worcestershire, by Kingsford Forest and the rather upmarket edifice of Kinver Edge Farm. For two hundred yards we believed the return bridleway shared the drive to the farm, only to appreciate our mistake as we confronted their code controlled gates and security cameras. Happily, just ten paces away I caught sight of a path running in parallel, the other side of a fence and an easy cut through.

Now at the lower end of the heath, the bridleway followed the perimeter of the farm, marked to the east by a spinney of cedars, and to the east, an acre or two of woodland lately visited by the barber, with occasional silver birch still clinging to the scalped terrain. At the end of the spinney the sandy path wound eastwards by bracken and gorse not yet in bloom, rising again past the war memorial and more open space for people to picnic, to exercise dogs, or to practise taking penalties. I saw one be-headphoned young chap, with an easel and an A2 canvas, struggle in the wind to keep the two together.

Back at the start is the other interest Kinver has to offer. Its rock houses. The last troglodyte dwellings to be occupied in England. Here are a handful of cave-houses excavated into the sandstone, inhabited as recently as the 1950s.

I hesitated about the blip I was to post. The heathland delivered according to my penchant for a solitary tree in a wild environment. But this two and a half roomed property, its perch and humbleness, devoid of all modern convenience, was a marvel of a quite different and rarer kind.