Lud's Church and Hanging Stone

Last Monday I had an urge to head Homewards and walk to Lud's Church - until I realised it was a bank holiday. A sunny bank holiday too. There was no way I was going to this area on a sunny bank holiday so I changed my plans and visited Coombes Valley instead.

I made it to Lud's Church on Friday though, a grey weekday, my last weekday off before going back to school. I started from Roach End and headed downwards towards Back Forest.

I like walking here. It's interesting scenery and terrain. Rocky underfoot in place and always pretty muddy! After a while walking through the forest, I reached one end of Lud's Church.

This is the way in I often took as a child but it has been fenced off for quite a few years. Today, the fencing was on the floor (seemingly used for planks to cross the mud) so I took the squeeze and scramble down way in, like I used to (rather than the steps down just a few metres further on!).

If you're wondering where on the earth the church is, Lud's Church is not actually a church but a huge chasm in the rock and supposedly the Green Chapel in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

If you want to know more about it, the Wikipedia page gives a pretty good overview.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lud%27s_Church

Can you see the face of the Green Knight?

It's a cool, damp place all year round with walls covered in dripping mosses and ferns.

For some sense of scale, here's a photo take in roughly the same place as the one above from January 2012...

Once I'd walked through the 'church', I could have taken various paths from the other end. I dallied eating bilberries for a while and then decided to walk back through the chasm...

and head up the steps which are the main way in and out for this end.

I retraced my steps for a while heading back but then went off and walked up across the moorland

making a spur of the moment decision to, instead of heading back to the car from here, head the opposite way along Roaches Ridge and re-visit Hanging Stone.

There were loads of swallows flying around the moorland, plus red grouse and meadow pipits.

I found a bee in the middle of the footpath which I initially thought was dead but it wasn't. I lifted it up and put it on some heather and its tongue was straight in there. After a minute, it was able to fly again.

Hanging Stone is on the furthest part of the ridge you can see below.

Looking back

This is Hanging Stone from above.  There were people here already, sitting beneath it, so I didn't linger or take many photos.

This is an old view of it from below, a photo I took in August 2007.

Hanging Stone is a rather precarious outcrop overlooking Swythamley Hall. As far as I'm aware, no one was ever hanged from this stone, I believe the name simply comes from the upper layers of overhanging rock.

I didn't walk down past the stone on this occasion. I turned back and retraced my steps for a little way...

but instead of heading back over Roaches Ridge, I took a path off to the left heading back towards Back Forest.

I passed the end of Lud's Church I'd exited at earlier, where I ate the bilberries

but this time walked around the chasm and carried on through the forest

Eventually, I reached the beginning of my walk and headed up the hill I'd descended as I began...

This walk was around four and a half miles long and I was really pleased to be able to walk on such uneven terrrain again without any pain if my feet or joints! It was good to be out for a walk after many months of not being able to walk!