A trail named after a brutal marcher lord passes through tranquil countryside between Shropshire and Herfordshire but is rich in reminders of the area’s turbulent past
I
n the UK, there is a proud tradition of naming long-distance walking paths after talented reprobates. I mean the various opium fiends, international terrorists and child murderers who make up our colourful national tapestry (see the Coleridge Way, Drake’s Trail and the Richard III Trail). So perhaps a 30-mile weekend walk dedicated to the Mortimers, and their most notorious scion, Sir Roger, is an appropriate addition to the weave.
After all, this is the man who allegedly slept with a reigning queen (Isabella), probably killed her husband (Edward II), and certainly became de facto tyrant of the realm for three turbulent years in the 1320s, feathering his own nest relentlessly during that time. They don’t make world leaders like that any longer, do they?
Roger’s stomping ground, however, was not where you might expect: he was a marcher lord on the Welsh border, and his family trail wends its way through tranquil countryside from Ludlow in Shropshire to the quiet Herefordshire border town of Kington, the perfect distance for a weekend hike. But can such a location, so peaceful and orderly today, live up to the outrageous standards of Sir Roger? The Mortimer Trail itself has existed for some years, but now a new guidebook and app have brought this magnificently horrid hero back into the limelight.
