A Night in the Snow; Or, a Struggle for Life (Dodo Press)

In 1865, the Rector of Woolstaston, the Reverend Edmund Donald Carr (c1830-1900), was walking from Ratlinghope in order to attempt a second Sunday evening service at another church when he was caught in a blizzard, lost for 22 hours, snow-blinded and almost dead. He emerged in the Cardingmill Valley and must have crossed Wild Moor and Hiddon Hill, some of the wildest country, in his desperate search and struggle to survive. His account of the ordeal A Night in the Snow; or, A Struggle for Life (1865) has become well-known in Shropshire. It causes amusement in summer, with its tale of the reverend gentleman sheltering beneath a dead and frozen horse and plummeting down near-vertical snow glissades clutching his bible, but is a memorable reminder of the dangers of this area in winter.