Titterstone Clee Hill, sometimes referred to as Titterstone Clee or Clee Hill, is a prominent

hill A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit. Terminology The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally considered to be not a ...

in the rural

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

county of

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

, rising at the summit to above sea level. It is one of the

Clee Hills The Clee Hills are a range of hills in Shropshire, England near Ludlow, consisting of Brown Clee Hill , the highest peak in Shropshire, and Titterstone Clee Hill . They are both in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Geogra ...

, in the

Shropshire Hills The Shropshire Hills are a dissected upland area and one of the natural regions of England. They lie wholly within the county of Shropshire and encompass several distinctive and well-known landmarks, such as the Long Mynd, Wenlock Edge, The W ...

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of ...

. The nearest town to the hill is

Ludlow Ludlow () is a market town in Shropshire, England. The town is significant in the history of the Welsh Marches and in relation to Wales. It is located south of Shrewsbury and north of Hereford, on the A49 road which bypasses the town. The ...

, which can be seen from parts of

Cleehill Cleehill is a village in south Shropshire, England. It is sometimes written as Clee Hill Village (including the road sign entering the village) to avoid confusion. It lies in the civil parish of Caynham. The market towns of Ludlow and Cleobury Mo ...

village.

Geography

Titterstone Clee is the third-highest hill in Shropshire, surpassed only by the nearby

Brown Clee Hill Brown Clee Hill is the highest hill in the rural English county of Shropshire, at above sea level. It is one of the Clee Hills, and is in the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Geography Brown Clee Hill lies five miles nor ...

() and

Stiperstones The Stiperstones ( cy, Carneddau Teon) is a distinctive hill in the county of Shropshire, England. The quartzite rock of the ridge formed some 480 million years ago. During the last Ice Age Stiperstones lay on the eastern margin of the Welsh i ...

(). Much of the higher part of the hill is

common land Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person who has ...

, used for the grazing of

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticate ...

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...

services and both working and disused

quarries A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...

. The summit of Titterstone Clee is bleak, treeless and shaped by decades of quarrying. Many of the industrial structures still remain. Most of the summit of the hill is affected by man-made activity, the result of hill fort construction during the Bronze and Iron Ages and, more recently, by years of mining for coal and quarrying for

dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grain ...

, known locally as 'dhustone', for use in road-building. Many derelict quarry buildings scattered over the hill are of industrial archaeological interest as very early examples of the use of reinforced concrete. The village of

lies on this road as it crosses the hill. At above sea level, it was home to what was, until it closed, the highest pub in

, called The Kremlin, and also to the highest primary school. On the northeast slope of the hill is the small village of

Cleeton St Mary Cleeton St Mary (or Cleeton) is a small village in south Shropshire, England. It lies on the northeast slope of Titterstone Clee Hill, at an elevation of above sea level. Cleeton forms part of the civil parish of Bitterley, even though the par ...

Geology

The hill rises above the surrounding countryside by virtue of its distinctive geology, the

igneous Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or ...

rocks capping both Titterstone Clee and Clee Hill being more resistant to erosion than the neighbouring

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

s. Most of the lower ground is underlain by mudstones and sandstones of

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, wh ...

age and collected together as the

Old Red Sandstone The Old Red Sandstone is an assemblage of rocks in the North Atlantic region largely of Devonian age. It extends in the east across Great Britain, Ireland and Norway, and in the west along the northeastern seaboard of North America. It also exte ...

. The uppermost part of this succession is the St Maughans Formation and on the northern and western sides it rises almost to the summit where it is then capped by a hard-wearing dolerite

sill Sill may refer to: * Sill (dock), a weir at the low water mark retaining water within a dock * Sill (geology), a subhorizontal sheet intrusion of molten or solidified magma * Sill (geostatistics) * Sill (river), a river in Austria * Sill plate, ...

. A similar but larger and separate intrusion caps Clee Hill to the south. The Old Red Sandstone is

unconformably An unconformity is a buried erosional or non-depositional surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval ...

overlain by

Carboniferous Limestone Carboniferous Limestone is a collective term for the succession of limestones occurring widely throughout Great Britain and Ireland that were deposited during the Dinantian epoch (geology), Epoch of the Carboniferous period (geology), Period. T ...

which locally is accounted for by the Orton Limestone Formation and the Lower Limestone Shale Group. These rocks occur in a curved outcrop to the south of Cleehill village and to the north around Farlow. Overlying this is the Cornbrook Sandstone formation, the local representative of the Millstone Grit underlying the ground between Cleehill village and Knowle and also to the northeast of the hill. This is succeeded by the mudstones, siltstones and sandstones of the Lower and Middle Coal Measures which makes up much of the rest of the surface of the hill extending southwest to Knowbury and northeast beneath

Catherton Common Catherton Common is a nature reserve of the Shropshire Wildlife Trust, between Cleehill and Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire, England. It is heathland, designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.seatearths and

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

seams which have been worked in the past. The lowermost and most extensive of these, just above the basal sandstone of the Coal Measures is known as the 'Gutter Coal'. The dark coloured dolerite of the sill is known locally as Dhu Stone ('dhu' may have arisen from the Welsh 'du' meaning 'black'). It is an olivine basalt which appears to have been intruded as a sill between sandstone layers within the unconsolidated strata of the Middle Westphalian sediments soon after deposition of the latter. A fault system runs ENE-WSW across the southern flanks of these hills. The northerly downthrowing Leinthall Earls Fault runs off to the WSW whilst the Titterstone Clee Fault runs off the ENE. Other smaller faults, some at right angles to these named faults, affect both the sedimentary strata dn the intruded sills. Near the summit is the Giant's Chair – a pile of boulders created during cold phases of the Devensian ice age.

History, quarrying and land usage

Near the summit trig point are the remains of a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehi ...

, dating back up to 4,000 years and indicating that the summit was a likely ceremonial site. Although partly destroyed by quarrying, Titterstone Clee's

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

or encampment, enclosed by a huge boundary earthworks, has fared better than those on Brown Clee. It is of note that the walls of the fort are made up of stone blocks, instead of earth banks. Clee Hill is one of only a few hills and mountains noted on the

Hereford Mappa Mundi The Hereford Mappa Mundi is a medieval map of the known world ( la, mappa mundi), of a form deriving from the T and O pattern, dating from c. 1300. Archeological scholars believe the map to have originated from eastern England in either Yor ...

, a 13th-century map of the world displayed at

Hereford Cathedral Hereford Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Hereford in Hereford, England. A place of worship has existed on the site of the present building since the 8th century or earlier. The present building was begun in 1079. ...

. In medieval times

ironstone Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...

and, later,

were mined, in particular from bell pits: localised mine shafts, one of which has now flooded to form a lake. Over the years large numbers of

were opened up on Titterstone Clee to exploit the dolerite. All but one, on Clee Hill, are now abandoned. The largest quarries have sheer drops of up to around 100 feet (30m). Before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the area would be described as industrial, because of the presence of wide-scale quarrying and associated activity. Men came from places such as

Bridgnorth Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England. The River Severn splits it into High Town and Low Town, the upper town on the right bank and the lower on the left bank of the River Severn. The population at the 2011 Census was 12,079. Histor ...

and Ludlow to work in the quarries, and the villages of

Bedlam Bedlam, a word for an environment of insanity, is a term that may refer to: Places * Bedlam, North Yorkshire, a village in England * Bedlam, Shropshire, a small hamlet in England * Bethlem Royal Hospital, a London psychiatric institution and the ...

and Dhustone on Titterstone Clee were built especially for the quarry workers. Crumbling remains of quarry buildings now litter the hill, reminders of a bygone industry that once employed more than 2,000 people here. An old

narrow gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller struct ...

incline is still visible on the hill and a large concrete structure under which the wagons were filled with stone still remains next to the modern day car park. Nearby, on the flanks of Clee Hill, a standard gauge railway incline provided means of exporting quarried stone from above Cleehill village. This railway infrastructure remained intact until abandoned in the early 1960s. In the past the quarries have also been worked (on a much smaller scale) for coal, fireclay and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

. Early in the 20th century, a further large quarry (the Magpie Quarry) opened on the eastern side of Clee Hill and an aerial ropeway was built to carry stone off the hill eastwards to the

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

at Detton Ford. The footings for the tall pylons which supported the wires still remain near the summit, parallel to the modern day track to the

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...

domes. During the Second World War, in September 1941, a radar station was set up on Titterstone Clee under cover of being a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

station under the name of RAF Clee Hill, which housed between 40-50 personnel. Initially the radar and wireless crew lived in huts within the station which made for cold living conditions in winter but it ceased to be residential in September 1956 when crew were allowed to board in Ludlow. The station, latterly commanded by a Flight Lieutenant, disbanded and closed in September 1957. However it was reactivated in 1964 under the oversight of the

Civil Aviation Authority A civil aviation authority (CAA) is a national or supranational statutory authority that oversees the regulation of civil aviation, including the maintenance of an aircraft register. Role Due to the inherent dangers in the use of flight vehicles, ...

. Several radar domes and towers currently operate on the summit of the hill. The largest of the radar arrays is part of the

National Air Traffic Services NATS Holdings, formerly National Air Traffic Services and commonly referred to as NATS, is the main air navigation service provider in the United Kingdom. It inherited the traditions of UK air traffic control, which (founded over Croydon Air ...

(NATS) radar network, and covers one of 30 overlapping regions of UK airspace. The one on Titterstone Clee monitors all aircraft within a 100-mile radius. The smaller of the two is a

Met Office The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by CEO Penelop ...

weather radar station which is part of a network of 16 across the country used to detect cloud precipitation (rain). The domes and masts are well-known local

landmarks A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures or f ...

, with one in particular often being nicknamed 'the golf ball'. Clee Hill is still quarried behind Cleehill village. Quarrying resumed here in the late 1980s, 50 years after the Titterstone Clee Dhustone quarry closed just below the summit. The main buildings of the quarry are just visible from the A4117 road but virtually hidden from view by ingenious landscaping. A 20th century

triangulation pillar A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity. The nomenclature varies regionally: they a ...

marks the summit.

Access and recreation

The summit area and unenclosed upper slopes of Titterstone Clee, along with Clee Hill to its south, were mapped as 'open country' under the provisions of the

Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (c. 37), known informally as the CRoW Act or "Right to Roam" Act is a United Kingdom Act of Parliament affecting England and Wales which came into force on 30 November 2000. Right to roam The Act imp ...

and thereby freely available to walkers. There is in addition a dense network of footpaths and bridleways running both across the unenclosed land and also the enclosed farmland surrounding the hill. Some connect from the A4117

Cleobury Mortimer Cleobury Mortimer (, ) is a market town and civil parish in southeast Shropshire, England, which had a population of 3,036 at the 2011 census. It was granted a market charter by Henry III in 1226.''Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londinensi ...

road which runs east-west across Clee Hill Common's southern flanks (reaching a height of above sea level at its highest point) though a minor public road reaches to the upper parts of the hill where there are parking areas. Thus Titterstone Clee is popular with walkers and picnickers, but much less so than nearby hills such as the

Long Mynd , photo = , photo_alt = , photo_caption = View down Townbrook Valley toward Burway Hill , country_type = , country = England , subdivision1_type = County , subdivision1 = Shropshire , border ...

. From the summit the

Shropshire Way The Shropshire Way Main Route is a waymarked long distance footpath running through the English county of Shropshire. It runs around the interior of the county in two loops centred on Shrewsbury, with an additional spur to Whitchurch. The M ...

runs north to

, southwest to Ludlow and east to Cleobury Mortimer. Another long-distance trail, the

Jack Mytton Way The Jack Mytton Way is a long distance footpath and bridleway for horseriders, hillwalkers and mountain bikers in mid and south Shropshire, England. It typically takes a week to ride on horseback. For much of its length it passes through ...

runs along the northeastern margin of the hill.

In fiction

Titterstone Clee plays a central role in the

Ellis Peters Edith Mary Pargeter (28 September 1913 – 14 October 1995), also known by her '' nom de plume'' Ellis Peters, was an English author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honoured for her trans ...

' novel ''

The Virgin in the Ice ''The Virgin in the Ice'' is a medieval mystery novel by Ellis Peters, set in late 1139. It is the sixth novel in The Cadfael Chronicles, first published in 1982 (1982 in literature). It was adapted for radio by BBC Radio 4 in 1992 and for te ...

''.

References

External links

Shropshire Geology – Titterstone Clee

Computer generated summit panorama from Titterstone Clee

BBC Shropshire photo gallery

Hills of Shropshire Industrial railways in England Marilyns of England Radar stations 3 ft gauge railways in England Railway inclines in the United Kingdom