“Marion and I are thinking of walking the Mortimer Trail, and wondered if you and Judith might like to join with us?” The email from my friend David had me searching for maps – call me old-fashioned, but I’d still rather see a walking route on paper than on screen, at any rate to start with. The Trail runs for 30 miles or so from Ludlow in Shropshre across the northern part of Herefordshire to Kington, just a couple of miles from the Welsh border.
There are plenty of reasons for walking this trail. The scenery is lovely. Here is the River Lugg at Aymestrey, and the picture also shows the hills which offer great views. There are also forests rich with native trees, along with open commons. We’ll certainly get some exercise – I didn’t have to look at the map for long to spot the contours, but you can’t have that mix of hilltop views and river banks without doing the up and down.
Then there’s the history. The Trail is named after the Mortimer family, who came over with William the Conqueror, and established the family seat at Wigmore Castle, about half way along the Trail, in about 1075. That remained their stronghold until the early 14th century, when the most celebrated Mortimer of them all, Roger (IV, ie the 4th of that name), acquired Ludlow Castle by marriage.
The Mortimers were leading figures in the area known as the March of Wales, which we now tend to call the Marches, and became steadily more involved in national life culminating in Roger IV becoming first a key lieutenant of Edward II, then turning against him, forming a relationship (yes, that sort) with his wife, Isabella, and becoming de facto ruler of England between 1326 and 1330 when the young Edward III asserted himself and had Mortimer executed for treason. All this deserves a blog of its own, as we come across the now ruined sites. And the history goes well beyond the Mortimers, with two Iron Age hillforts along the Trail, interesting churches, and examples of old quarry workings.
The reference to “workings” is a reminder that the area isn’t and never was a theme park – something that visitors need to remember. One of the main points of interest for me will be to think about who used to walk these paths, and for what reasons. Some will have gone to battle, and some to church, not least to the abbeys along the route. Some will have been trading, others perhaps driving cattle – there’s still some finding out and exploration to do.
Walking through the towns and villages will also offer a brief but close-up view of a little visited part of England. And a part that is a borderland. That was certainly true for the centuries when the Mortimers held sway: they were (on the whole) defending the Marches and the rest of England against periodic predations from Welsh attackers. The border is more important again now: as I write, it’s 25 years almost to the day since the National Assembly of Wales, now Senedd Cymru, first met. Has that had any impact on the immediately neighbouring part of England? Does Kington – with Offa’s Dyke running through the middle (albeit still a couple of miles from the administrative border) – feel any different from Ludlow 30 miles back? These are real issues for the people who live there, irrespective of how many walkers are tramping past their front door. I’ll try hard to keep my interest respectful.
So there’s history, scenery, and a borderland to get to know. All we need now’s the weather.