Distance: 9.7 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: hard

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Circular walk from Church Stretton Railway Station, up Carding Mill Valley and across the Long Mynd Plateau and Wild Moor down to Ratlinghope, site of the grave of Richard Munslow Britain’s last “sin-eater”.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Britain’s Last “Sin-Eater”

Sin is a concept which has largely departed mainstream culture in England. However, it was not so many generations ago that fear of sin and its potential impact upon individuals and in particular their prospects for salvation were widespread.

Many mainline Protestant denominations take a rather different view regarding sin than the Roman Catholic church. All major Christian churches see sin as an inevitable part of the human experience and condition. However, whereas Protestants for various reasons tend to focus upon the individual believer and the choices they make to live their life as a Christian as the path away from sin, Roman Catholics while not denying the importance of individual choices, lean more on the idea that non-clerics need to be regularly purged of their sins, otherwise they accumulate unhealthily.

Sin eating, a custom once common in Wales and adjacent counties in the English Midlands like Shropshire and Herefordshire, stands firmly in the latter tradition of understanding sin. Perhaps it persisted for generations even after the reformation due to a lingering Roman Catholic conception of sin in Wales and its adjoining regions? Or perhaps it reflected a genuine popular Christian response to sin and the fear that it could leave dead loved ones damned? Either way, it is an old tradition, once practised in the Midlands, which vividly illustrates

For the uninitiated, sin eating is the practice of somebody consuming the unatoned for sins of recently deceased, essentially adding them to their own pile of transgressions and absolving the deceased. The transfer is performed through the “sin-eater” consuming food and drink over the coffin of the deceased immediately prior to, during, or just after the funeral service.

In some non-British cultures including southern Germany and Croatia where forms of sin eating were once practised, this role fell to the decedent’s surviving family members, who would eat and take on their departed reatlive’s unconfessed sins. Essentially easing their salvation and collectively taking up their sinful burden. It is creepy, certainly to our modern often post-religious sensibilities, but there is also a deep element of love and solidarity to the gesture. This makes the act of sin eating quite moving.

Here in Britain by contrast, sin-eaters were typically poor people paid by the family to undertake the due and take on the deceased sin. A fact which gives the transaction an altogether different sheen.

Antiquarians and other travellers in Herefordshire and Shropshire first observed the custom of sin eating in the 17th Century though of course it may have been far older and undocumented. By the 19th Century it was believed to be dying out, at least in Wales. By contrast in England, especially in Shropshire, it appear to have persisted, with the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911 citing a sin eating ceremony being conducted by pall bearers at a Market Drayton funeral as late as 1893.

Further south in Shropshire sin eating may have persisted even longer. Richard Munslow, a farmer from Ratlinghope, a little village on the western side of the Long Mynd plateau, purportedly was the “last sin-eater” dying in 1906. His grave can be visited in Ratlinghope’s little churchyard. In contrast to most sin-eaters who were desperately poor Richard Munslow was a wealthy and successful farmer. The story around him states that all three of his children were taken in the space of a week by scarlet fever in 1870. It was this occurrence which led him to take-up sin eating. For Richard Munslow the worst that could happen had happened, and he offered his services as a sin-eater to his neighbours as an act of charity, seeking to ease their concerns for their relatives’ souls now that the tragedy which had befallen his family meant that he had little regard for the state of his own. His death finally bringing to an end one of the Midland’s stranger, crueller, but also at times most poignant, traditional customs.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.

This circular walk up and over the Long Mynd plateau to Ratlinghope begins from Church Stretton Railway Station.

If arriving at Church Stretton from the north, having travelled via Shrewsbury upon alighting, exit left out of the station onto a short cul-de-sac road running up towards a petrol station on the left hand side.

Upon reaching the main road which the petrol station fronts onto, turn left.

Walk a very short distance, then turn left again walking along a tree lined section of road.

This leads towards the town centre passing over the railway line once more.

Soon you are walking up a road lined with tall shops constructed during the town’s 19th and early 20th Century tourism heyday. This includes several distinctive and imposing bank buildings, all now closed and seemingly disused, all apparently built at around the same time in more or less the same style, but presumably by different banks.

Presently you reach a crossroads.

Turn right here, and leave the town centre behind heading into a residential area.

After some distance on your left there is an adjoining road leading past a smattering of houses. As the signposts located near the road betray, this is the way to Carding Mill Valley, the best known way up onto Long Mynd, and an immensely popular day out in its own right.

Keep walking along the road.

Presently it turns into the National Trust Car Park for Carding Mill Valley.

After following the road-cum-car park along the valley floor for some distance you come to a cluster of buildings, some in early 20th Century Alpine style, which form the National Trust’s base of operations around the Long Mynd plateau. There is a tearoom and cafe here.

Continuing on past the buildings the valley begins to narrow.

Keeping on the road you begin to gently ascend towards the top of the plateau.

Initially the track is quite wide, however, upon reaching the bottom of the Light Spout waterfall, where it twists to the right, and you cross the stream, it narrows and becomes rockier.

The final part of the ascent to the top of Long Mynd is quite steep, up a well worn rocky path.

Near the relatively flat top of the plateau the views back down Carding Mill Valley towards the valley floor and the lower distant peaks, looking back into eastern Shropshire, are striking.

Upon reaching the top of the plateau keep walking straight ahead along the path you followed up from Carding Mill Valley.

After some distance you come to another bridleway running along the ridge which marks the top of the plateau.

Here, turn left.

Follow the bridleway as it runs to the left for some distance.

At a junction with another bridleway keep walking straight ahead.

Then walk a bit further along the bridleway.

Presently you pass a small car park adjacent to one of the steep, narrow, public roads that wind up and across Long Mynd.

Upon reaching the car park turn right and walk across it. Here you reach a road which you turn right on, and walk along across the moorland for a short distance.

Presently you reach a junction where the road bends sharply. Off to the left there is a bridleway running downhill across Wild Moor.

Turn left and follow the bridleway for quite some distance heading steadily downhill near the southern edge of Wild Moor.

Just after these trees there is a farmhouse on the right. Immediately after the farmhouse’s yard there is a gate leading into a field below the farm.

Head through this gate and follow the path straight downhill along the edge of a large meadow.

At the base of the meadow you reach a gate on the left leading out onto a lane.

Once on the lane turn right and continue heading downhill.

This lane twists and turns and soon you see the scattered houses and farms which comprise Ratlinghope off to the right below you.

Soon after Ratlinghope appears off to the right you reach the bottom of the lane and the main road (also a relatively quiet lane in fact) through the village. Here turn right and walk downhill towards the large farm, little church and small cluster of houses which counts as the village centre. 

In truth Ratlinghope is little more than a hamlet. The village’s little Anglican church is where the graveyard holding the grave of Richard Munslow, purportedly Britain’s last “sin-eater”, sits.

Just after passing the church the road forks. Here take the right hand arm of the road running uphill out of the village.

Continue along the road as it gently climbs up the side of a valley, for some distance.

Presently off on the right just in front of a small stand of trees there is a gate, not waymarked with a footpath sign, which you walk through.

Once in the field, head pretty much straight across it, climbing uphill. There is a gate visible on your left, but instead of heading for this point, turn to the right towards a stile.

Cross this stile and you are now back onto Wild Moor. Here turn left and walk a short distance along the line of the fence that delineates the boundary of the moor.

Soon you reach a point where a clearly cut path runs uphill. Here turn right and begin following the path uphill across the moor.

Follow this path for quite some distance.

Presently you reach a tarmac road. Here, turn right following the road.

Soon you pass a small lake called Wildmoor Pool, continuing along the road.

A little way after Wildmoor Pool you come to a car park on your right.

Upon reaching the car park turn right and cross it, heading a short way along a wide footpath at the far end of the car park.

After a short distance this path forks. Here take the left hand fork.

Walk along the left hand fork a short distance. Look out on your right for a faint path heading across the moorland.

Upon reaching this path turn right and follow it across the moor for some distance.

Soon you reach a wide track running along the top of the north part of the Long Mynd Plateau, high above Church Stretton.

On reaching this track turn left and walk straight ahead for a short distance.

Once again, look out on your right for a faint path leading off into the moorland undergrowth.

Upon finding it, turn right and follow it through the undergrowth. When I walked the route in mid-September 2023 the ferns and heather were just beginning to die-back meaning that the pathway was somewhat obscured.

Follow the path as it runs steadily to the right, steadily descending from the top of the Long Mynd plateau, yet still hugging its edge.

Presently you enter a clough with a little stream running down it.

On the far side of the stream head left, walking further through the ferns.

Soon the path forks. Here take the right hand fork running uphill, then follow the path straight.

This is the trickiest part of the walk as the path is quite indistinct. Keep walking more or less straight ahead following the line of the plateau around to the right.

After walking for some minutes ahead of you on an opposite hill, the infrastructure and clean cut green of a golf course comes into view on the right.

Upon seeing the golf course, keep following the faint track around the right. Ahead of you, you see a far wider path which you head for.

On reaching this track turn left and follow it round in the direction of the golf course.

Ahead of you at the bottom of a slope you see a fence with a wooden footgate set into it. Turn left heading for this gateway.

Walk through the gateway onto the golf course.

Once on the golf course walk straight ahead up a slight slope. At the top of the slope walk straight ahead heading for a stand of trees.

Pass the stand of trees on the left hand side continuing to walk straight ahead, heading for a black corrugated metal shed.

Shortly after passing the black metal corrugated shed you reach a clump of moorland grass. Follow a narrow path down through this patch of grass reaching a bridleway style track.

Upon reaching this track turn right and follow it uphill.

On reaching the brow of the hill keep following the bridleway style track downhill. Somewhat confusingly the right of way for the bridleway shown on Ordnance Survey does not parallel the track exactly. However, I was assured by a member of the golf club who passed me standing somewhat confused by this, that they are perfectly happy for walkers just to follow it downhill – so there we go!

Continue along the track heading downhill for quite some distance as it twists and turns around the hill side.

Eventually you reach a junction where it intersects with another track. Here turn right and follow the track downhill a short distance.

Soon you come to a gate next to the golf club’s clubhouse on your left.

Walk through this gate and straight across the golf club’s car park, down its driveway, to a public road.

Upon reaching this road, on the suburban edge of Church Stretton, turn right and follow the road downhill.

The road sharply curves around and leads you down to near the mouth of the road you initially walked up to reach Carding Mill Valley at the start of the walk.

Head back along the road to one of the main roads through Church Stretton. Upon reaching the road turn right walking back towards the town centre.

Upon reaching the cross roads in the centre of Church Stretton turn left.

Keep walking straight down the road past parades of shops for some distance.

Presently off on the right you see the sign for Church Stretton Station. Turn right down the road this way marks heading for the station.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Church Stretton Railway Station has a reasonably frequent (roughly hourly) service north towards Shrewsbury where trains can be caught eastwards towards the West Midlands conurbation, as well as west into Mid-Wales and north towards Manchester. There are also trains running south towards Ludlow, Leominster and Hereford, as well as further south towards South Wales destinations like Cardiff and Swansea. Church Stretton is also (as of September 2023) on a bus route between Shrewsbury and Ludlow with a roughly hour service throughout the day until early evening.