The Stiperstones is a very distinctive hill

Hill

A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills often have a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of flat terrain without a massive summit A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills...

 in the county of Shropshire

Shropshire

Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is a quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

 ridge formed some 480 Million years ago. During the last Ice Age the summit stood out above the glacier

Glacier

A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...

s and was subject to constant freezing and thawing which shattered the quartzite into a mass of jumbled scree

Scree

Scree, also called talus, is a term given to an accumulation of broken rock fragments at the base of crags, mountain cliffs, or valley shoulders. Landforms associated with these materials are sometimes called scree slopes or talus piles...

 surrounding several residual rocky tors. At 536 metres above sea level

Sea level

Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...

 it is the second highest hill in the county, surpassed only by Brown Clee Hill

Brown Clee Hill

Brown Clee Hill is the highest hill in the rural English county of Shropshire, at 540 metres above sea level. It is one of the Clee Hills, and is in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.-Geography:...

 (546 m). Stiperstones' five-mile (8 km) long summit ridge is crowned by several rugged, jagged outcrops of rock silhouetted against the sky.

Geography

The Stiperstones is noted for its tors of quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

. The principal ones are named as follows, from north-east to south-west:

• Shepherd's Rock
• Devil's Chair
• Manstone Rock
• Cranberry Rock
• Nipstone Rock
• The Rock

Manstone Rock is the highest of these at 536 metres, and is topped with a trig point

Trig point

A triangulation station, also known as a triangulation pillar, trigonometrical station, trigonometrical point, trig station, trig beacon or trig point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity...

. The Devil's Chair is the largest and best known.

The Stiperstones ridge is a good place to view the upland

Highland (geography)

The term highland or upland is used to denote any mountainous region or elevated mountainous plateau. Generally speaking, the term upland tends to be used for ranges of hills, typically up to 500-600m, and highland for ranges of low mountains.The Scottish Highlands refers to the mountainous...

 landscape of the Shropshire Hills, particularly the Long Mynd

Long Mynd

The Long Mynd in Shropshire, England, is a part of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is south of the county town Shrewsbury, and has an area of over 22 square kilometres , most of which takes the form of a heathland plateau. Most of the land on the Long Mynd is owned by...

 to the east, and also gives extensive views towards the North Shropshire

North Shropshire

North Shropshire was a local government district in Shropshire, England. The district council was based at Edinburgh House, in Wem. Other settlements included the towns of Ellesmere, Market Drayton, Wem and Whitchurch, as well as the large villages of Shawbury and Baschurch...

 plain and the hills of Mid Wales

Mid Wales

Mid Wales is the name given to the central region of Wales. The Mid Wales Regional Committee of the National Assembly for Wales covered the counties of Ceredigion and Powys and the area of Gwynedd that had previously been the district of Meirionydd. A similar definition is used by the BBC...

.

The small village of Stiperstones lies just under the ridge to the north-west; it has a pub called the Stiperstones Inn. Nearby are the villages of Snailbeach

Snailbeach

Snailbeach is a village in Shropshire, England, located near Shrewsbury at . The village was formerly home to a large lead mine.-Early history:A village was built for workers at the local lead mine - Snailbeach Mine, which reputedly dates back to Roman times...

, Minsterley

Minsterley

Minsterley is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It is home to a large dairy operated by Uniq foods.The dairy currently employs nearly 500 people...

, Ratlinghope

Ratlinghope

Ratlinghope is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It is situated four miles west from Church Stretton and twelve miles south from Shrewsbury.Historically it is located in the hundred of Purslow...

 and Pontesbury

Pontesbury

Pontesbury is a large village and civil parish in Shropshire and is approximately eight miles southwest of the county town of Shrewsbury. The village of Minsterley is just over a mile further southwest. The A488 road runs through the village, on its way from Shrewsbury to Bishop's Castle...

.

Wildlife and conservation

The Stiperstones is a National Nature Reserve

National Nature Reserve

For details of National nature reserves in the United Kingdom see:*National Nature Reserves in England*National Nature Reserves in Northern Ireland*National Nature Reserves in Scotland*National Nature Reserves in Wales...

 and in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is an area of countryside considered to have significant landscape value in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, that has been specially designated by the Countryside Agency on behalf of the United Kingdom government; the Countryside Council for Wales on...

. It is a haven for wildlife, with birds that are normally associated with upland areas present, including Red Grouse

Red grouse

The Red Grouse is a medium sized bird of the grouse family which is found in heather moorland in Great Britain and Ireland. It is usually classified as a subspecies of the Willow Grouse but is sometimes considered to be a separate species Lagopus scoticus...

, Eurasian Curlew

Eurasian Curlew

The Eurasian Curlew, Numenius arquata, is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae. It is one of the most widespread of the curlews, breeding across temperate Europe and Asia...

, Peregrine Falcon

Peregrine Falcon

The Peregrine Falcon , also known as the Peregrine, and historically as the Duck Hawk in North America, is a widespread bird of prey in the family Falconidae. A large, crow-sized falcon, it has a blue-gray back, barred white underparts, and a black head and "moustache"...

 and the rare Ring Ouzel

Ring Ouzel

The Ring Ouzel is a European member of the thrush family Turdidae.It is the mountain equivalent of the closely related Common Blackbird, and breeds in gullies, rocky areas or scree slopes....

.

Recently, a project called Back to Purple has commenced, to clear some of the hill of remaining plantations of coniferous and wooded areas, restoring the land to heather

Ericaceae

The Ericaceae, commonly known as the heath or heather family, is a group of mostly calcifuge flowering plants. The family is large, with roughly 4000 species spread across 126 genera, making it the 14th most speciose family of flowering plants...

 based heath

Heath (habitat)

A heath or heathland is a dwarf-shrub habitat found on mainly low quality acidic soils, characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, often dominated by plants of the Ericaceae. There are some clear differences between heath and moorland...

, seeing once again in season a glorious purple heather upland tract covering the summits around the tors and enhancing the views of the Stiperstones from the surrounding peaks and valleys.

Back to Purple is managed by a partnership of Natural England

Natural England

Natural England is the non-departmental public body of the UK government responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, freshwater and marine environments, geology and soils, are protected and improved...

, Forest Enterprise

Forestry Commission

The Forestry Commission is a non-ministerial government department responsible for forestry in Great Britain. Its mission is to protect and expand Britain's forests and woodlands and increase their value to society and the environment....

 and the Shropshire Wildlife Trust

Shropshire Wildlife Trust

The Shropshire Wildlife Trust is a wildlife trust covering the geographic county of Shropshire, England.-Nature reserves:The trust cares for, or is associated with, 42 nature reserves in the county:...

. Their work has so far seen removal of thousands of pine trees and conifers, including the whole Gatten Plantation (still shown on OS

Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey , an executive agency and non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom, is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, producing maps of Great Britain , and one of the world's largest producers of maps.The name reflects its creation together with...

 maps) and the previously covered Nipstone Rock has emerged from hiding. Thousands of heather seedlings have been successfully planted to supplement natural regeneration.

To balance this out and complement it further work below summit level has also aimed at restoring grasslands, rich in herbs, hay meadows, wet flushes which produce bog cotton, Heath Bedstraw and the rarer Mountain Pansy and natural woodland

Woodland

Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...

s.

Cultural references

The general area has a long history of lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

 mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

, most notably during the Roman occupation of Britain. Several pigs of lead have been found nearby, and the tradition continued into Victorian times.

The area around the Stiperstones is rich in myth

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

s and folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

 relating to the rocks of the Devil's Chair. According to one legend, the ghost of Wild Edric, a Saxon

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

 earl

Earl

An earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...

 who held lands that were confiscated after 1066 and successfully defied the Normans

Normans

The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...

, for a time at least, rides the hills whenever England is threatened by invasion. The Stiperstones feature in the literary works of Mary Webb

Mary Webb

Mary Webb , was an English romantic novelist and poet of the early 20th century, whose work is set chiefly in the Shropshire countryside and among Shropshire characters and people which she knew. Her novels have been successfully dramatized, most notably the film Gone to Earth in 1950 by Michael...

 and children's author Malcolm Saville

Malcolm Saville

Leonard Malcolm Saville was an English author born in Hastings, Sussex. He is best known for the Lone Pine series of children's books, many of which are set in Shropshire. His work places emphasis on place, with the books including many vivid descriptions of English countryside, villages and...

 and in a jazz work commissioned by Music at Leasowes Bank, written and performed by the Clark Tracey

Clark Tracey

Clark Tracey is an English jazz drummer. He is the son of Stan Tracey.Tracey played piano and vibraphone before switching to drums at age 13, studying under Bryan Spring. Tracey played in several ensembles with his father, including in a quartet called Fathers and Sons with John and Alec Dankworth...

 Quintet.

The Half Man Half Biscuit

Half Man Half Biscuit

Half Man Half Biscuit, often "HMHB", are an English rock band from Birkenhead, Merseyside, active since the mid-1980s, known for satirical, sardonic, and sometimes surreal songs. The group comprises Nigel Blackwell , Neil Crossley , Ken Hancock , and Carl Henry...

 album "90 Bisodol (Crimond)

90 Bisodol (Crimond)

90 Bisodol is the twelfth album by UK rock band Half Man Half Biscuit, released in September 2011.The "Bisodol" in the title is a type of indigestion medication, mentioned in the track "Tommy Walsh's Eco House". Crimond is a village in northeast Scotland, after which a hymn tune is named,...

" contains a track entitled "Descent of the Stiperstones".