Before embarking on a big walk I pay my respects to the local gods. Venturing into a little-known corner, you do all you can to avoid disaster. So in Much Wenlock Museum I bow down before the titan of sport and fitness: William Penny Brookes, who helped revive the Olympic ideal in the late 19th century, and badgered parliament about physical education in state schools. He seems an appropriate spirit to conjure before a 20-mile hike.
At this fine little museum I come across others worthy of propitiating. There's Roderick Murchison, who invented the term Silurian – the geological period, not the Doctor Who monster, and Tim King, curator of the museum and tireless praise-singer of Much Wenlock. He shows me the fetters for criminals under the Guildhall, and grooves in the church walls worn by medieval bowmen sharpening their arrows for battles such as Agincourt and Crécy.
With these sights duly noted I set off with my companion, Wilf the dog. There are two long-distance paths to choose from: the Shropshire Way and the Jack Mytton Way. We choose the latter and are soon deep into flower-strewn beech woods. Wenlock Edge is a ridge, but you are almost always in woods. Views are few and far between. The first, and most famous, is Major's Leap, where … No, I'll get to that story later. The second is Ippikin's Rock, named for a robber knight whose treasure is said to be buried in the woods. Wilf tries digging it up, but gets distracted by rabbits. Ippikin's ghost is rumoured to occasionally shove people off the top, but we survive and move on.
We switch to the Shropshire Way to enjoy views of Brown Clee, the highest hill in Shropshire. It is said that looking east from the top at 540m, the next geographical feature of such height is in the Ural mountains.
After about eight miles and in incessant rain, we reach Wilderhope Manor, a youth hostel in a perfectly preserved Elizabethan manor complete with hand-hewn oak spiral staircases and walls thicker than Henry VIII, built in the 1580s for one Francis Smallman.
It was his descendant, Thomas, who, returning from battle to find his house looted by Oliver Cromwell's men, set off in pursuit and recaptured his possessions. On the way back he met a larger group of parliamentarians, who held him prisoner in his own house. He used a secret cubby hole to escape and rode out along the Edge. As his pursuers got close he spurred his horse over the cliff and landed in a crab apple tree. His steed was killed but he limped off and made it back to the Royalist army. Hence the name Major's Leap.
The hostel has bunk beds, decent showers, food and bottled beers. Next day the sun comes out and the woods burst into life. Buzzards swoop along the track and a badger crashes away into bushes, pursued by Wilf, who returns looking like he's been given a left hook.
These flowery beech woods are about as beautiful as you could hope to find. Shropshire may not have a single acre of national park but almost a quarter of the county is classified as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. That clunky title would not have pleased AE Housman, whose epic 1896 poem cycle A Shropshire Lad made him a bestseller.
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double
And thick on Severn snow the leaves
Finally, after eight more miles, the track drops towards the town of Craven Arms. I've spent two days in the woods, scarcely seeing another human, except at Wilderhope, and feel as though I might have been in the Urals.
Craven Arms has the renowned and wonderfully quirky Land of Lost Content Museum, but I'd suggest a north turn and a finish in far prettier Church Stretton, especially if you plan to stop a night. This also allows a connection to the weekend Wenlock Wanderer bus service.
• See shropshirehillsaonb.co.uk. The Wenlock Wanderer (shropshirehillsshuttles.co.uk, no 781) runs until 29 Sept at weekends and bank holiday Mondays. Dorm beds at Wilderhope Manor (0845 371 9149, yha.org.uk/hostel/wilderhope) cost from £18. OS Explorer 217 (ISBN: 978-0319237656, £7.99) covers Kevin's route
