There are an awful lot of hills in the view. The furthest bump to your left is the Wrekin, thought to have been dumped by a tired giant. Further south the wooded Wenlock Edge, once the home of robbers & outlaws, runs all the way to Craven Arms. In front of that are the Lawley and Caer Caradoc with their ancient hillforts. The long, low bump ahead is the Long Mynd, made of some of Shropshire’s oldest rock. The gap between it and Caradoc was caused by the Church Stretton Fault – a still active rip in the Earth’s crust. The rocky cliff at the edge of the viewpoint car park is just as old. Some say it looks like a pile of dumped concrete!
The bumpy old lane on the right is called the ‘Rope Walk’. Three hundred years ago flax and hemp rope was made here and sold for ships, mines and farms all over the world. They’d stretch and twist the rope in long lines down the lane. They even had a windmill to help, but it’s gone now. It would have made a cool zip-slide!
The old lane passing the front of Lyth Hill is called the ‘Salter’s Way’. In Roman times salt was more valuable than gold. People were paid in salt. It’s where the word ‘celery’ comes from. No that’s daft. I meant ‘salary’. Pack horses carefully guarded by Roman soldiers, would have used the old road to take salt to pay the miners at the lead mines a few miles south.
From Lyth Hill you can see Iron Age Hillforts on the Wrekin, Lawley, Caer Caradoc, Brown Clee & Earl’s Hill. Caer Caradoc gets its name from an ancient British warrior who fought the Romans and was taken to Rome in chains of gold.
Ironbridge Cloud Factory which is pictured on the walk leaflet was actually a power station. It used to run on coal and when clouds were rising from the big chimneys, it meant that a lot of people were using electricity. The cloud factory isn’t there anymore. It stopped making electricity in 2015 and the factory was blown up in 2019!
Take the A49 to Bayston Hill. Turn onto Lyth Hill Road. Follow Lyth Hill Road for a mile to reach Lyth Hill Countryside Heritage site.