Telford |
The Wrekin
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Seek the spiritual heart of Shropshire and you’ll find the Wrekin. The Wrekin plays an important role in Shropshire folk-lore. To us it represents home, and we love it
Visitors, pilgrims, honoured guests – we give you the Shropshire toast.
“All friends round the Wrekin”.
The Wrekin is perhaps Shropshire’s best known landmark, a curious legendary hill that, from this way it looks like a mountain, and that way, it crouches low. From the top you can see fifteen counties.
It was also the inspiration for Tolkien's Middle Earth in the acclaimed series of books - The Lord of The Rings. Tolkien used to live nearby and drew inspiration from the magnificent Shropshire landscape.
It dominates the view of Telford and Ironbridge being 1335 ft tall and who would have guessed that Shropshire folk-lore tells us it was built by a giant who took a dislike to Shrewsbury.
The Giant in question was a Welshman who dug a spadeful of soil and planned to dump it into the river severn, flooding the town.
However, whilst slogging across the Shropshire hills, this giant lost his bearings and having only got as far as Wellington stopped for a rest. Sitting on the roadside he called out to a passing cobbler trying to find the direction to Shrewsbury. He told the cobbler he was going to flood the town.
The cobbler, a quick thinking business man, thought for a moment and realized if the giant flooded Shrewsbury, he’d lose all his customers.
The cobbler quickly emptied his sack of worn out shoes onto the roadside and told the giant that he’d worn these shoes out himself coming from Shrewsbury.
The giant, thinking better of his plan then decided to forget about Shrewsbury and go home instead. The Giant dumped his spadeful of soil on the roadside, and then scraped his boots clean with his spade.
The mound of earth became the Wrekin and the smaller hill where he scraped his boots became the Ercall.
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