Every public walk except Darwin’s Shrewsbury starts at The Square, beside the statue of Clive of India, and we are there from ten minutes before with a small board. If you have never been: The Square is the open space in front of the Old Market Hall, which is the black-and-white stone building on legs — come up Pride Hill and you cannot miss it. The Darwin walk starts outside the Unitarian Church on the High Street instead, four minutes away, because that is where the story does. Shrewsbury station is a nine-minute walk from The Square, uphill; the Frankwell and Raven Meadows car parks are both about six minutes, and Raven Meadows has the lift. The Bellstone Rooms, where we work, are at 14 Barracks Passage off Wyle Cop — up the passage, first door on the left, and the stairs are steep. There is no shop and nobody sitting there most days, so please ring before coming to the office rather than after.

The season runs from February half-term to the last Saturday in November. Public walks are Saturdays at 11.00 and 14.00 and Wednesdays at 14.00, with extra dates every day through August and over both half-terms. The 1403 walk runs on the first Saturday of the month at 10.00 from April to October, because it needs two and a half hours and a minibus. Ghost Signs runs Thursday evenings at 19.00 from May to September, when the light is low enough for the painted signs to come back. Between December and February half-term we do not run public walks: it is dark by four, the shuts are genuinely treacherous in ice, and the three of us use the time to work in the archive, which is what the following season is made of. We will still take private bookings in that window if the forecast is kind, and every year a few people ask for a walk between Christmas and New Year, which we are always glad to do.

Gift vouchers are the most common request and they are simple: any amount, no expiry date, sent as a printed card in the post if you tell us three days ahead or as a PDF if you have left it until Christmas Eve, which somebody does every year. They are not tied to a particular walk or date, so the person receiving one can pick whatever suits them, and if they never use it we will refund you rather than keep it, which is not the industry norm and ought to be. Groups of ten or more on a public walk should tell us in advance even though you do not have to — it lets us bring a second guide and split the group at the first stop, which is the difference between everyone hearing and half of you following a voice round a corner. Coach parties we take, but only in the morning and only up to forty across two guides, because the shuts genuinely cannot absorb more than twenty people at once without becoming a nuisance to people who live there. Hen and stag groups are welcome, sober ones more so, and we have a firm rule about not taking any group where somebody is already unsteady on their feet before we have started up Wyle Cop.