Mostly try to walk during the the week now I don't pursue any gainful employment. But I did a walk yesterday, on t'Sabbath wasn't it, good time to get across a bit of open ground when there might be folk around with nothing better to do than call after me "Hoy what are yow doing there!". On the topic I have been looking at lostways and the effects of areas without rights of way called Xzones or Black Holes I was curious about a break in the natural line of 'Off Road' that seemed to exist between Newport, Shropshire and Shrewsbury shown in a map I posted
here , it is the break in the line of travel to the east and is the area of the WW2 airfield of High Ercall. An old footpath was not reinstated by the War Dept. Lazy load of booggers. Anyway there was about a mile runway and other tarmac of vintage grade which gave me a very blustery insight into the geography of that area and why it should be suitable for a war time airfield. Reading some of the history on line I gather most of the runways were ripped up, but some left for access to hangers that still remain. Actually there is enough of those, which are still there, to provide a very good route across from Walton to Moortown except for about 200 yards short of Moortown, where there is two farms and the start of a right of way that provides a good mile of cross country to a crossing of the A442 near Waters Upton.
Some information on Shropshire airfield;
http://shropshirehistory.com/military/airfields.htmI took an interest in the rather attractive farm buildings, classic agricultural Revolution, when estates invested in the infrastructure of agriculture to get rental incomes from good tenancies and I got talking to the retired farmer, who lives at the Chestnuts, one of the two farms. He recognised me though I have been out of the Shropshire agricultural scene for more that 30 years. Having been very friendly with one of his cousins, it was easy to get a bit of local gossip. Most of the his land is let off, so the work is done by contractors for farmers running much larger farming operations, I find this useful to know as the 'worker in the field' or machine operator will be disinterested in a walker, using field margins and farm tracks.
This farmer was an owner/occupier, descendant of the tenant, who bought the farm from an estate after WW1, to pay off death duties. I think he told be the name of the estate was
Buckley, though I was not too sure when I got back to the car and a pen and paper to makes notes. More important details like what I might get away with in the area as far as additional access was prime in my mind and not the name of some old pharts who lost their land. Still they had some pretty little embellishments which can be seen on the link through their name.