Shropshire - Candida Lycett Green

Clun, Shropshire

By Candida Lycett Green, on January 24th, 2012%

Clun is a small town of grim grey stone among huge hills scattered with bilberries, Neolithic earthworks and iron age hill forts. The past rolls into the present in these hills for the landscape has hardly changed and there is precious little plough— fields are still sprinkled with trees and there are oak and beech woods hanging on to steep hillsides. Clun itself sits on the convergence of eight roads and was for centuries a fierce bastion protecting the Salopians against the turbulent Welsh. At the time of the Norman Conquest Clun formed part of the extensive lands of . . . → Read More: Clun, Shropshire

Shobdon, Shropshire

By Candida Lycett Green, on January 5th, 2012%

Shobdon Church, Herefordshire

Shobdon was the first church I ever really liked. I was twelve years old when I saw it. To me it looked like the most extravagantly glamorous drawing room I had ever seen in my life. Filled with light, its swirling rococo plasterwork and its fancy décor of chalk white walls, ice blue/grey paintwork and red cushioned pews constituted the polar opposite of what I thought a church should look like. There was no hint of gloom and not much hint of God either. It seemed likely that a cocktail party might take place there at any minute and certainly, as the Shell . . . → Read More: Shobdon, Shropshire