What looked like a woolly daredevil turned out to be a sheep stranded for more than three days on a quarry ledge.
Lewis Sunderland, Dan Carter and Molly Howells, from Bridgnorth, rescued the sheep from a perch 20m above the ground on the rockface at Clee Hill.
The three are members of a climbing group in Shrewsbury. Carter said they decided to help after learning the animal was not a woolly jumper but had been stuck high up for days.
“We figured ‘that’s not far too from us, we’ll just go and check it out’ and found the poor thing there,” he said.
Carter said the ledge was “tiny” and the sheep “had next to no room to move about and there was just crumbling rock and mud left, right and centre”.
He said he and Sunderland, who are both web developers, climbed up on either side of the sheep in case it ran.
Sunderland said Howells, his partner, kept pet sheep and “knows sheep better than any of us”, so she came as back-up and to offer advice.
When they reached the sheep, nicknamed Flossy, they found she was hard to catch.
“I think we underestimated how flighty she’d be,” Sunderland said.
“We both hoped she’d be more scared of the fall than us.”
Carter said he made an unsuccessful attempt to grab her leg before Sunderland made “the catch of the century” to secure her.
The pair then put Flossy into a large bag borrowed from a farmer and lowered themselves back down to safety.
By then, a crowd had gathered below to watch, although Sunderland said he had not noticed while he was on the cliff face.
Afterwards, Carter said: “I think we both turned to each other and said ‘shall we go to the pub’?”
Instead, they met Flossy’s owner. Carter said the farmer had been “quite emotional”.
Sunderland said the farmer’s family had been “incredibly appreciative” and the group spent more than an hour with them afterwards, sharing tea and a chat.
The rescuers said they did not know how Flossy became stuck on the cliff, but after photographs were taken, she bounded off to join the rest of the flock near the top.
Sunderland said the farmer had promised to send them updates on Flossy in the future.
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