Heath Chapel, Brown Clee, Shropshire: 'You’re transported back to the 12th century'

A remote medieval church in Shropshire is today's Secret Britain find.

Heath Chapel, near Clee St Margaret, Shropshire.
Heath Chapel, near Clee St Margaret, Shropshire.
(Image credit: Alamy)
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‘From Clee to Heaven the beacon burns,’ wrote A. E. Housman in A Shropshire Lad — he could easily have been thinking of tiny Heath Chapel.

High up and isolated in the Clee Hills — which Shropshireites claim to be the highest land eastwards until the Urals in Russia — it’s all that remains of a medieval village and has barely changed since it was built by the Normans.

The arch doorway of Heath Chapel, near Clee St Margaret.

Faded traces of ancient images and texts can be seen on the walls; if you ignore the wooden pews, you’re transported back to the 12th century, a feeling enhanced by how difficult the chapel is to find.

See more of Secret Britain.

Inside the Norman chapel at Heath, Shropshire.

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(Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo)

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(Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo)

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(Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo)

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Annunciata Elwes
Annunciata Elwes

Annunciata is director of contemporary art gallery TIN MAN ART and an award-winning journalist specialising in art, culture and property. Previously, she was Country Life’s News & Property Editor. Before that, she worked at The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, researched for a historical biographer and co-founded a literary, art and music festival in Oxfordshire. Lancashire-born, she lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and a mischievous pug.