Family Walk at The Stiperstones – Rugged Ridge Trail in Shropshire with Kids

A wet and windy trip to the Devil’s Chair!

Sunday 25th August 2024. Last weekend we did a couple of walks with our neighbours, and we all agreed it would be a nice idea to make it a regular event! Fast forward to this weekend and here we are, another walk under our belts with the neighbour’s family!

And it finally rained!

In one of my first blogs I mentioned how we’d gotten into the habit of not getting outside if there was even the slightest hint of bad weather. We’d bought waterproof clothing and boots, but still used bad weather as an excuse to not do anything. Since turning our outlook around, we’ve had almost perfect weather for all our weekends since (honestly, look at the photos of all our family walks so far!!) but today, with great jubilation, we were able to put on our wet weather gear!

The drive to Stiperstones took approximately an hour from our house, and I was surprised at how high the car park was. At around 400ft higher than The Wrekin, I was expecting a good climb, but most of the climb was done in the car, and elevation gain through walking was an easy 480ft only!

After arriving at the carpark at Stiperstones, we changed into our wet weather gear (hurrah!) and headed out onto the trail that my husband had downloaded from All Trails. It took a while before the app he was using could figure out where we were, and we actually ended up doing it backwards, but that turned out to be a good thing – which I will explain later!

From Heather to Horizons

The initial climb was short and before long we turned right to walk along the side of the hill through a well trodden, and at times very boggy, Heather filled trail. The views were almost non existent as we started the walk, but as we walked along, the wind, which was definitely getting stronger, was helping to clear the clouds and treat us to some wonderful far reaching views!

At the end of this section along the hillside, we started climbing upwards again, this time along a gravel trail, to a point where we could see the views on either side of the hill! Pretty spectacular! At the end of the walk my husband told me we’d taken a wrong turn and actually missed around a half mile of the walk out, oops!

So many Tors!

We continued the climb onward to the first of the quartzite tors.

It was a spectacular sight to see the Tors up close, as were the views we could see from up here too, across the Shropshire countryside and beyond!

The boys had a bit of a climb and had a lot of fun. Sadly, as the walk continued the wind got stronger, and by the next rock ensemble I’d put a ban on climbing, as it was unstable enough just walking, and I didn’t fancy any serious accidents! It was a shame as they’d have loved climbing, but perhaps we can come back on a calmer day and let them loose then.

As we turned away from the first of the Tors to continue the walk, I was surprised to see many more rocky outcrops ahead of us. I’d only had a quick look at the area prior to arriving, and had not realised that there was a whole series of these quartzite tors! Absolutely beautiful!

The Stiperstones form a dramatic ridge of quartzite formed some 480 million years ago. During the last ice age it was subjected to extremes of weather, which resulted in the shattering of the quartzite and the formation of Tors with jumbled scree around their bases. Most of the Tors have evocative names, Shepherd’s Rock, Devils Chair etc. The views of the surrounding countryside from this vantage point are second to none. This rocky atmospheric outcrop lies in a magnificent National Nature Reserve.

https://churchstretton.co.uk/directory/the-stiperstones/

The Devil’s Chair. Maybe.

I’ll be honest, despite extensive Googling back home, I’m still non the wiser as to which of these wonderful Tors is the Devil’s Chair! Local folklore suggests people feel an eerie force when around the Devil’s Chair, but all I could feel was the full brunt of the wind, at every one of the rocky outcrops 😂

We also discovered another trig point, but I’d already imposed the climbing ban so we couldn’t get close to it – I feel a second trip is required so we can grab some photos up there!

It was at the trig point that we found a pretty sheltered area to have some lunch. Nestled in the rocks, we tucked into our lunch, and discussed which towns we thought we could see from this vantage point and tried to work out where our home town was. We could clearly see The Wrekin and it was great to look at it knowing we’d already ticked that off our list (twice!). I’m very proud of the family for all the walks we’ve done since July!

Heading back.

The walk continued past several other Tors of varying sizes. We enjoyed family photos in front of some of them, and some were small enough to have a little, safe, climb on, so all was not totally lost for the more adventurous among us!

The path underfoot was very rocky and quite difficult to walk on – it’s hard to describe, but no matter what angle you put your foot down at, half of your foot would strike against something else, either the ground or another rock, at a totally different angle 😂 The smaller footed among us (children!) didn’t seem to have any trouble though!

At one section we had to clamber down a very rocky spot, and the rocks were loose and unstable, but it was fun to mix up the terrain and do a spot of scrambling!

The walk continued downward on the difficult rocky terrain, and this is why I said earlier in the post that I’m glad we walked it backwards, because it would have been incredibly tiring walking up this way! The route we had actually taken up wasnt tiring at all! We met another group of walkers halfway down, and I said my usual ‘Hello’, but as well as a ‘Hello’ back, I was also asked ‘how are you doing?’. Politely I said ‘great thanks, just a little windswept’, and asked them how they were doing – the reply ‘Absolutely knackered already!’ 😂

The rest of the walk continued much the same, until we hit the bottom and the short walk back to the carpark was along softer, grassy trails, with a few sheep thrown into the mix! Back in the carpark we also noticed a couple of other walking arrows to different walks. Once home I Googled them, and one appears to be a pram friendly route and the other is a little nature based walk where you (might) see lizards!

Family Feedback on Stiperstones

The first thing I really noticed about this walk, and this was despite the weather, was how many families we saw. And not grown up families, or ones with teenagers, but ones with toddlers! 2 families had baby’s on their backs and I’m sure I counted 4 different children around the 2-3 years old mark. Whilst we had intended to do the 4.5mile route, there appeared to be a more direct route up to the stones, and even if you only went to see and scramble up one of the Tors, it would still be a fantastic walk for littler legs! Of course, as I said above, there is also the pram friendly route and a little nature walk, so all in all this would be a brilliant place to bring the entire family!

For the bigger children, there are longer walks, or you could head straight up and spend your energy touring the various Tors and having a good old climb. You could spend hours here if you wanted, what an adventure playground it could be!

My 10 year old and 8 year old both absolutely loved climbing and were gutted when I told them no more, but my eldest did say that it made sense as it was a ‘bit too windy’.

We did a very tall hill (not classified as a mountain) and my favourite bit was when I climbed up this really rocky pile of boulders (called The Devil’s Chair).

S, 10 years old.

On Sunday we went on a walk called Stiperstones walk and S and I climbed some rocks!

C, 8 years old.

I’d recommend some good footwear for this walk, especially if you intend to climb – and bring some extra layers – just in case it’s as windy as we had it! The carpark had no amenities but it was free – there was a little donation post which was a great idea!

We’ve already earmarked this as a return walk: it was fun and adventurous, and we intend to come back in better (much less windy!) conditions, and to try a longer route. We might even work out which Tor is the Devil’s Chair 🫣

TOTAL MILES: 3.95 | TOTAL TIME: 2h24 (1h36 Moving Time)