Leafy river trails, ruined castles wreathed in mist, tawny forests and welcoming old inns… all just an hour’s drive from the M5. Julie Brominicks whiles away a few golden days on an autumn walk in Herefordshire
Photos: Oliver Edwards Julie Brominicks is the author of The Edge of Cymru, published by Seren Books. She lives off the grid in southern Eryri (Snowdonia), from where she explores Cymru and its perimeters on foot and by public transport.
DISCOVER
The sounds of birds cause me to pause. Sither-sither-sith. Their chatter is louder without the competing tramp of my boots.
Even though I am on the road section – known as The Goggin – of the Mortimer Trail, there is no other noise, and there has been no traffic on this lane, down which moss paints a velveteen stripe.
Sither-see-sith. The long-tailed tits are marauding like monkeys through an ash tree, with other tits and finches in their wake – great tits, blue tits, coal tits, chaffinches. More. A nuthatch tumbles out of a hazel before zooming up and away. A wren bumbles from the scrub where a columbine blooms among brambles, montbretia, bryony berries, hazel catkins and fluffy seedheads of rosebay willowherb.
Snared between seasons, the jumbled half-decaying vegetation in its rich detail brings Pre-Raphaelite paintings to mind. It, like much of the trail, is full of life. A warm breeze blows. Light washes over the moss.
WHAT IS THE MORTIMER TRAIL?
The Mortimer Trail is a vigorous 30-mile linear route between Ludlow and Kington which takes between two and five days to walk in either direction. While Ludlow is just inside Shropshire, most of the trail plots a southwest–northeast trajectory across North Herefordshire hill country and takes in three rivers: the Teme, the Lugg and the Arrow. Few facilities lie on the route, which was helped into existence in 1995 by local trail pioneer Les Lumsdon. Instead, Les included link walks to nearby villages, such as Wigmore, Shobdon and Richards Castle. The lin
