Areas like the Stiperstones are fantastic examples of the type of beautiful and awe inspiring natural wonders that the life stories project is dedicated to promoting and protecting.
"Once you've lived there, it's very difficult to live anywhere else." Tony Cook, Stiperstones farmer.
The Stiperstones summit-ridge rears in frost-shattered quartzite among the snow. It is a gaunt and silent landscape now, a wilderness. Hard to imagine it has ever been anything except empty, wild and cold.
The view from the Stiperstones ridge
Except, it has not. Only a few generations ago - in living memory - hundreds of people lived here, drawn by the lead that runs through the body of these hills. The richest lead vein in Europe, it was. Miners tunneled underground, their families lived above in huddled cottages. They fed their cattle from the holly trees that clutch the hillside against the wind. Their children played on the way to school. Each Sunday, streams of people poured off the hillside and into half a dozen churches. It was industrial. It was alive.
And today, the Stiperstones is a living landscape again. Shropshire Wildlife Trust manages four small reserves on the Stiperstones, while other areas are owned by farmers, private owners and public bodies such as the Foresty Commission and Natural England. Together, we are working towards a shared vision for this landscape, as a strong and healthy expanse of wildness for both the people and wildlife that live within it.
Visit Shropshire Wildlife Trust reserves in the Stiperstones
