Kinver Edge is a high

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler ...

and

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...

just west of

Kinver Kinver is a large village in the District of South Staffordshire in Staffordshire, England. It is in the far south-west of the county, at the end of the narrow finger of land surrounded by the counties of Shropshire, Worcestershire and the ...

, about four miles west of

Stourbridge Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England, situated on the River Stour. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The ...

, and four miles north of

Kidderminster Kidderminster is a large market and historic minster town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester. Located north of the River Stour and east of the River Severn, in the 2011 census, it h ...

, and is on the border between

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

and Staffordshire,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It is now owned by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

History

Kinver Edge is a remnant of the

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era= Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ...

n forest, although much planting dates from post-1945. There are two

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 appl ...

hillforts on Kinver Edge; the larger one,

Kinver Edge Hillfort Kinver Edge Hillfort, is a univallate Iron Age hillfort with a massive rampart and outer ditch along the south-west and south-east sides, with natural defences on the remaining sides. The fort is located at the northern end of Kinver Edge, in t ...

, is at the northern end, while

the other In phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the other human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknowledgement of being real; he ...

is at the southern end, on a promontory known as Drakelow Hill. The area has been a popular local tourist destination since Edwardian times, when an electric tramway, the Kinver Light Railway, connected Kinver to the Birmingham tram system. The

was given 198 acres of Kinver Edge in 1917 by the children of Thomas Grosvenor Lee, a Birmingham solicitor born in Kinver, in memory of Lee and his wife. The Trust acquired a further 85 acres between 1964 and 1980. In 2014 Worcestershire Council Cabinet approved the transfer of Kingsford Forest Park (also known as Kingsford Country Park) to the National Trust. The Forest Park, which covered approximately , lay entirely in Worcestershire where it adjoined the southern end of the Edge. The transfer had been completed by 2018, with 'Kingsford Forest Park' signs being replaced by 'National Trust Kinver Edge' signs. The total area covered by Kinver Edge now amounts to approximately 600 acres.Subsequent to the incorporation of the Forest Park, National Trust notices displayed in 2019 requesting that dogs be kept on leads during the breeding season for heathland birds stated "This request only applies to around 100 acres of the approximately 600 acres of Kinver Edge".

Rock Houses

Kinver Edge is home to the last troglodyte dwellings occupied in England, with a set of complete cave-houses excavated into the local

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

. One of the rocks, "Holy Austin", was a hermitage until the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

. The Holy Austin rock houses were inhabited until the 1960s. They are now owned by the

and are open for tour. One house has been restored to a Victorian appearance, and the Martindale Caves show what life was like in the 1930s. The cottage gardens and an orchard are being replanted and restored. Other cave dwellings found on Kinver Edge include: *Nanny's Rock, a large cavern with five compartments which was apparently never converted into a house. For many years it was known as 'Meg-o-Fox-Hole'; the parish register records the death on 8 June 1617 of one 'Margaret of the fox earth' who may have lived there. *Vale's Rock, also known as Crow's Rock, later turned into a house on two levels. It was also inhabited until the 1960s but due to its dangerous condition has since been fenced off to prevent public access.

Geography

Kinver Edge is situated to the east of the Severn Valley, and is in the

South Staffordshire South Staffordshire is a local government district in Staffordshire, England. The district lies to the north and west of the West Midlands county, bordering Shropshire to the west and Worcestershire to the south. It contains notable settleme ...

Wyre Forest __NOTOC__ Wyre Forest is a large, semi-natural (partially unmanaged) woodland and forest measuring which straddles the borders of Worcestershire and Shropshire, England. Knowles Mill, a former corn mill owned by the National Trust, lies w ...

Districts. It is situated in

green belt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wilderness, wild, or agricultural landscape, land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenway (lan ...

land, and is at the very edge of the urban metropolitan West Midlands. Kinver Edge rises to 164 metres above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

at the summit, and provides views to the Clent Hills, Shatterford Hill,

Dudley Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the ...

Wenlock Edge Wenlock Edge is a limestone escarpment near Much Wenlock, Shropshire, England and a site of special scientific interest because of its geology. It is over long, running southwest to northeast between Craven Arms and Much Wenlock, and is roughl ...

Malvern Hills The Malvern Hills are in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern. The highest summit aff ...

and the Shropshire Hills. The Edge is a sandstone ridge topped with Bunter pebbles, and is subject to erosion.

Flora and fauna

Kinver Edge contains two areas of

heathland A heath () is a shrubland habitat (ecology), habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great B ...

, the larger near the top of the escarpment in the north and the smaller in the former Forest Park to the south. The broadleaf

in the north includes

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

, oak and

sweet chestnut ''Castanea sativa'', the sweet chestnut, Spanish chestnut or just chestnut, is a species of tree in the family Fagaceae, native to Southern Europe and Asia Minor, and widely cultivated throughout the temperate world. A substantial, long-lived ...

trees, while the former Forest Park is largely made up of coniferous plantation woodlands. the National Trust is proposing to restore a further 47.9 acres of heathland in the former Forest Park over the next 10 years.Proposals displayed on National Trust noticeboards at the Edge, February 2020 The heathland on Kinver Edge is inhabited by

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted f ...

, including the

adder Adder may refer to: * AA-12 Adder, a Russian air-to-air missile * Adder (electronics), an electronic circuit designed to do addition * Adder Technology, a manufacturing company * Armstrong Siddeley Adder, a late 1940s British turbojet engine * ''B ...

common lizard The viviparous lizard, or common lizard, (''Zootoca vivipara'', formerly ''Lacerta vivipara''), is a Eurasian lizard. It lives farther north than any other species of non-marine reptile, and is named for the fact that it is viviparous, meaning it ...

, and heathland birds such as the

skylark ''Alauda'' is a genus of larks found across much of Europe, Asia and in the mountains of north Africa, and one of the species (the Raso lark) endemic to the islet of Raso in the Cape Verde Islands. Further, at least two additional species are ...

Common buzzard The common buzzard (''Buteo buteo'') is a medium-to-large bird of prey Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals, reptiles ...

Eurasian jay The Eurasian jay (''Garrulus glandarius'') is a species of passerine bird in the crow family Corvidae. It has pinkish brown plumage with a black stripe on each side of a whitish throat, a bright blue panel on the upper wing and a black tail. The ...

great spotted woodpecker The great spotted woodpecker (''Dendrocopos major'') is a medium-sized woodpecker with pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. This species is found acros ...

, and many other bird species are present in the woods, as are the

badger Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the family Mustelidae (which also includes the otters, wolverines, martens, minks, polecats, weasels, and ferrets). Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united ...

and red fox. From time to time longhorn cattle are allowed to graze on the heathland areas.

Contemporary uses

The primary economic activity is tourism and estate management. The Staffordshire Way long-distance footpath passes over the summit, while the North Worcestershire Path runs through the former Forest Park, which is also used for

mountain biking Mountain biking is a sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, usually using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and p ...

References

Notes

{{reflist , group = note

External links

Kinver Edge and the Rock Houses
- National Trust

BBC Radio 4 documentary about Kinver Edge (listen online)
File:Top of Kinver Edge.JPG, Summit of Kinver Edge File:Holy Austin Rock Houses.jpg, Holy Austin Rock Houses File:Holy Austin Rock Houses 2.jpg, Unrestored rock houses Hills of Staffordshire Hills of Worcestershire National Trust properties in Staffordshire Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Staffordshire Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Worcestershire South Staffordshire District Historic house museums in Staffordshire Escarpments of England