Brown Clee Hill

Brown Clee Hill
Brown Clee Hill, looking towards Abdon Burf
Highest point
Elevation	540 m (1,770 ft)
Prominence	373 m (1,224 ft)
Parent peak	Plynlimon
Listing	Marilyn,County Top
Coordinates	52°28′30″N2°36′02″W
Geography
Brown Clee Hill Brown Clee Hill in Shropshire
Location	Shropshire,England
OS grid	SO593865
Topo map	OSLandranger138

Brown Clee Hillis the highesthillin the ruralEnglishcounty ofShropshire,at 540 metres (1,770 ft) above sea level.It is one of theClee Hills,and is in theShropshire HillsArea of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Geography

Brown Clee Hill lies five miles north of its sister and neighbour,Titterstone Clee Hill.The highest peak of the hill is Abdon Burf, at 540 metres (1,770 ft) high with its shorter summit of Clee Burf being 510 metres (1,670 ft).

Much more of Brown Clee Hill is private land than on Titterstone Clee, and large areas are covered with coniferous plantations. The eastern expanse of the hill is in possession of the Burwarton Estate under ownership ofViscount Boyne,whilst the western fringes of the hill are owned by various private land owners and the parish ofClee St. Margaret.

The common land features the remains of where anIron Agehill fortonce stood(See Below).

Nearby towns areLudlow,Cleobury Mortimer,Church Stretton,Broseley,BridgnorthandMuch Wenlock.

Severalair traffic controlradar masts on the summit of the hill can be seen for many miles around. They, along with the ones on top of Titterstone Clee Hill build up a picture of all the aircraft in a hundred-mile radius.

Atoposcope,installed in 2006, points out local landmarks and is sited at Abdon Burf.

Geology

Like Titterstone Clee to the south, Brown Clee is formed fromsedimentary rocksoriginating during theCarboniferousperiod, rising above the lower ground which is underlain by older strata ofDevonian,and having a capping of hardwearingigneous rock.The gentlerreliefof the surrounding area is characterised by themudstonesandsandstonesof the St Maughans Formation. The lower slopes of the hill itself are formed by the sandstones andconglomeratesof the overlying Clee Sandstone Formation, the boundary between the two sets of strata being marked by the narrow outcrop of the Upper Abdon Limestone. Together these constitute the LowerOld Red Sandstoneof the area; the middle and upper 'Old Red' are absent locally. This sequence of rocks isunconformablyoverlain by the mudstones of the Lower and Middle Coal Measures which of course includecoalseams. Atop this thickness of sedimentary rocks are the outcrops ofdoleritewhich form the summits of both Abdon Burf and Clee Burf. A dark coloured rock, it is known locally as 'dhustone', dhu perhaps deriving fromWelsh'du' meaning 'black'. This erosion-resistant rock wasintrudedinto the sedimentary rocks in late Carboniferous times, though all overlying strata have long since eroded away.

Extensive areas ofheadare mapped to the east, and to an extent to the north, of the hill.

History

SeveralIron Agehill fortsare dotted around theClee Hills.Nordy Bankis the last 'intact' survivor of three hill forts on Brown Clee. The other two, at Abdon Burf and Clee Burf, have been largely lost to quarrying activity. Nordy Bank occupies a sloping ridge top site and its ramparts are up to three metres (10 feet) high. It was built some time in theBritish Iron Agefirst millennium BC and gives a commanding view of the local countryside.

Quarrying dhustone was for long the main income of the area, and it was widely known as a dangerous and gruelling job, this dolerite being a very hard and challenging material to extract. People would walk to the Abdon Quarry on Brown Clee Hill from as far asBridgnorthandLudlow,and often they would tend to at least one other job.

The Abdon Clee quarries closed in 1936, and by this time the area had become almost industrial, with aconcreteplant,tarmacplant inDitton Priors,plus a small railway to move the stone - and the quarries themselves. If the wind was coming down over the hill it was apparently possible to hear the stone crusher at the top crunching away, even down inCleehillvillage.

After the quarries closed, a lot of the quarrymen went to work at the Cockshutford quarries on the other side of Brown Clee but the dhustone there was not as good quality and durable as over on the Abdon side and that quarry failed too after a short period. Many of the men returned and worked at the naval ammunition depot set up at Ditton Priors at the start ofWorld War II.The quarries totally finished in the 1930s and 40s.

Whilst the radar facilities of theClee Hillsprotect aircraft, both hills were once a hazard to aircraft, and a memorial, unveiled onGood Fridayin 1981, commemorates the 23 Allied and German airmen killed here when their planes crashed into Brown Clee during World War II, in addition to those of aJet Provostwhich crashed on the hill in 1969. The first aircraft to crash into Brown Clee was a GermanJunkers Ju 88,on 1 April 1941. TwoWellington Bombers,aHawker Typhoonand at least twoAvro Ansonsalso crashed here. It is now thought that there were more wartime crashes on Brown Clee than any other hill inBritain.The engine and other parts of one of the Wellington Bombers are said to rest on the bottom of Boyne Water, Brown Clee.

Simon Evans(1895-1940), the postman writer of Cleobury Mortimer, had his ashes scattered on Abdon Burf following his death.

Views

View to the west from Abdon Burf

External links

• BBC Shropshire Clee Hills photo gallery
• Geology of Shropshire - Brown Clee
• Brown Clee Hill Computer Generated Summit Panorama