THE CLUN HILLS
The Clun Hills are totally different in character to the rugged hills we have visited so far – being gentle rolling country, reminiscent of the downland in the south of England. The big hills to the east of Clun, like Hopton Titterhill, Black Hill and Bucknell Hill, are clothed with serried ranks of Forestry Commission spruces. Those to the west of Clun, known as oddly as Clun Forest, are open grassland with barely a tree to be seen. The valleys are peaceful too, and sparsely populated with villages made famous by A.E.Housman in his lines “Clunton and Clunbury, Clungunford and Clun, are the quietest places under the sun”.
Life was not always so peaceful in the Clun Hills – as witnessed by the proliferation of defensive works through the ages. They include three fine Iron Age hill forts at Burrow Hill, Bury Ditches and Caer Caradoc just south of Clun. The highest and best section of Offa’s Dyke - the 168 mile long dyke along the Welsh border built by King Offa around AD790 - cuts through the hills east of Clun, and there are ruined Norman castles at Clun and Hopton Castle which saw bloody fighting in the Civil War.
Life was not always so peaceful in the Clun Hills – as witnessed by the proliferation of defensive works through the ages. They include three fine Iron Age hill forts at Burrow Hill, Bury Ditches and Caer Caradoc just south of Clun. The highest and best section of Offa’s Dyke - the 168 mile long dyke along the Welsh border built by King Offa around AD790 - cuts through the hills east of Clun, and there are ruined Norman castles at Clun and Hopton Castle which saw bloody fighting in the Civil War.