A teenager visited a famous manor outside Wem on a 900 mile cycle ride across the UK and Ireland to raise awareness about the state of soil.

Oscar Smith, 17, comes from the Isle of Sky and stopped outside Soulton Hall as part of the Cycle for Soil campaign by global ecological movement, Save Our Soil.

Oscar rode alongside 10 other riders and he was the only person to complete the journey and was welcomed in Parliament Square on Monday, December 5 for World Soil Day.

The 17-year-old started getting involved with the Save Our Soil campaign after coming across it on YouTube and he hopes the Government will take notice of his campaign.

He said: "Eighty seven per cent of life on earth comes from the thin layer of 15 inches of topsoil.

"In a simple fact, if we had no soil, we can’t have any life.

"I hope that the Government will see that myself, a 17-year-old kid, is cycling 900 miles for the soil because this is so important."

While Oscar stopped at Soulton Hall Farm, he met Dr Simon Jeffrey, a soil microbial ecologist in Harper Adams University and was told about the impact of degraded soil.

Dr Jeffrey said: "Approximately 75 percent of our soils are at least moderately degrade.

"In the UK this number is at around 40 percent.

"That means it’s predicted that by 2050, if nothing else changes, our average yields globally will be about 10 percent lower than they are at the moment and the population is only going up.

"Feeding more people with less food is never a good thing to try and achieve."

Save our Soil is backed by the World Food Programme, United Nations and the World Economic Forum.

Oscar hoes to bring the cause to a wider audience and when he arrived in London he said: "I would like to see the Government supporting farmers, educating farmers, and making it the norm that soil health should be focused on and put as number one in agricultural land.

"I hope that my journey will bring this issue to visibility to wider audiences.

"It feels overwhelming to have a reception like this.

"It’s been really intense, 16 days of full-on cycling every day, 50-60 miles a day and I am still processing it."