We are the East Staffordshire Ramblers. We open the way for everyone in the East Staffordshire area to enjoy the pleasures of walking.
Walking from Milford Common we proceed through one of the most attractive parts of the Cannock Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty before following the Staffordshire Way through the Shugborough Estate, once the home of Lord Lichfield and now in the care of the National Trust. We walk across historic Essex Bridge and briefly follow the route of the Trent and Mersey canal before returning to Milford via the Staffordshire and Worcester canal.
On Cannock Chase we visit the 'Glacial Boulder', a rock that have no right to be there, an "erratic" transported southwards by the spreading ice sheet during the Ice Age, and then left behind when the ice retreated again.
We will visit 'Hadrian's Arch' in Shugborough Estate , a spectacular folly constructed in 1765 and a copy of Hadrian's Arch in Athens. It commemorates Admiral Anson who lived at Shugborough Hall and is noted for his circumnavigation of the globe and his role in overseeing the Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763).
We will walk over the river Trent on Essex Bridge, built in 1550 by the then Earl of Essex for Queen Elizabeth I, so that when she visited the estate she could go hunting in the woodland around the local village. It is now one of oldest bridges in England not to be altered.
