Shropshire Way

The Shropshire Way was initially conceived in 1978 and completed in 1980, though the precise route has evolved in the intervening years. The current route is a simplifed version of a much more complicated web of  paths which had developed by 2015, causing confusion. The main route of the Shropshire Way now forms a 200-mile figure of eight centred on Shrewsbury, with the southern loop  (probably all that we are going to walk) comprising some 120 miles, mostly around the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. 

We don't know Shropshire well,  having so far as we can remember visited on just two holidays before we started on the Shropshire Way, firstly back in October 1993 when the children were 8 and 5 respectively, when we stayed in a cottage near Church Stretton; I remember the cottage being rather cold, and a determined 5-year old Helen leaping over the streams on a walk up the Carding Mill Valley.  We returned, again with Helen, when we were walking the Offa's Dyke Path with in much warmer (i.e. hot) weather in July 2006. On the basis of both of these visits, we were keen to explore further, and so far we haven't been disappointed.  The geology of the area is complicated, but the result is a glorious landscape, though the many hills mean that it is not trivial walking. 

The Shropshire Way  deliberately links to the Offa's Dyke Path and there is shared section between Hergan and Churchtown, which we'd  encountered on 10th July 2006.  It was almost exactly 16 years later when a walk from  Bishop's Castle took us to the Offa's Dyke Path/Shropshire Way at Churchtown  on 9th July 2022 and we returned the following day to connect from Clun to Hergan. 10th July is also the day the Offa's Dyke Path was opened in 1971, 35 and 51 years before our two visits (the 50th anniversary signs are a year out of date). The difference was that while on Offa's Dyke in 2006 we were moving on from  place to place very day, while in 2022 we were staying in a lovely holiday cottage at Rowton Manor near Craven Arms.

Progress along the route on our holiday in July 2022 was quite slow, partly because we only had one car with us so had to walk a circuit each day, partly because of the weather, and partly because we both developed Covid. This definitely slowed me down, though I wasn't really ill. Whatever, it didn't matter, we had a lovely time exploring the south-west of Shropshire and there were advantages to exploring more slowly and thoroughly.  Overall, we progressed around the south-west corner of the path from Bishop's Castle  via Clun to Craven Arms. We also completed a circuit from our cottage which connected with the main route of the Shropshire Way to the west of Craven Arms and also at Stokesay Castle. After each day of walking we returned to the cottage for a soak in the hot tub , something  we discovered on this holiday.  

We returned to the Shropshire Way at the end of September 2023, now staying in another delightful cottage, this time in the hamlet of Adstone, to the west of the Long Mynd, and from where a short walk over Adstone Hill (part of the ‘Adstone Walk’) leads to the Shropshire Way at Bridges. After our last walking holiday (on the coast of North-East England through Durham, Tyne and Wear and Northumberland) when we’d suffered with blisters and other difficulties, I was pleased with the distances we covered and our ability to cope with the ascents and descents of the Shropshire Way. Again we were progressing by way of a series of circuits, which meant overall progress was slow, but we weren’t in a hurry to finish another glorious and varied section, this time between Lyth Hill, about five miles south south-west of Shrewsbury, and Bishop’s Castle.  This section included the famous "Stipperstones" walk, and lots of other lovely landscapes.  We completed the link from Shrewsbury to Lyth Hill by means of a one-night mini-break in December 2023 in which we also explored Shrewsbury a little, and visited Attingham Park, decorated for Christmas. 

For our holiday in Shropshire in May 2024, we decided to take both cars with us, partly because there are fewer obvious circuits in the less popular Clee Hills area.  This time we were in an outstanding cottage (with breathtaking views) on the lower slopes of Brown Clee, and a diversion that only took us about a mile from the official route of the Shropshire Way enabled us to finish one day's walk actually at the cottage and start the following day's walk from the same place. Overall, on this holiday we progressed from the centre of Ludlow, over Titterstone Clee Hill and Brown Clee Hill and along Wenlock Edge to Much Wenlock and on to Benthall Hall, just short of Ironbridge. We filled in our previous "gap" between Craven Arms and Ludlow when staying in Ludlow for the weekend at the end of August 2024.

The main route of the Shropshire Way is generally well signposted, with the attractive orange "Shropshire Way Main Route" signs. However it is worth bearing in mind that many paths that are not on the main route retain the older style signs (as shown above the main route sign on the right) which is potentially confusing. Our printed paper OS maps (so far we've used Explorer sheets 201, 216 ,  217 and 241) still show these older routes too,  which certainly confused us to the south of Craven Arms where I had - incorrectly - got it into my head that the main route cuts off the corner and heads straight to Stokesay Castle.  Then we discovered that the printed Sheet 216, despite still being the version that is being sold in 2024, has not been updated to reflect significant changes in the route to both the west and east of Ludlow, made at least five years ago,  though the OS Maps App seems to be correct, as is the 2019 Circerone guide "Walking the Shropshire Way" appears to be definitive. 

In addition to the many spurs that are sometimes labelled as the Shropshire Way, and  to the brief section of path shared with the Offa's Dyke Path, we encountered a few other long-distance paths, including the Kerry Ridgeway, the Jack Mytton Way and the Cross Britain Way. However, it was a path extending from Shropshire and right across Wales that really sparked our enthusiasm. Craven Arms is a railway junction and from here the Heart of Wales line heads off to the south-west to Llanelli on the South Wales coast near Swansea.  In 2019 a new route, the Heart of Wales Line Trail was established, with the idea being that you use the train to connect to the trail where there isn't accommodation. We have already walked a short distance along the route and the rest is tempting, though it is a long way (143 miles) and described as "challenging" - and there is still plenty to explore in Shropshire! At 30 miles, a shorter but also challenging option is the Mortimer Trail, which links Ludlow and Kington. 

Because we walked much of Shropshire Way in a series of circuits, I could have initially have chosen to describe our overall progress in either direction, and whichever way I chose, the section of each circuit that is on the Shropshire Way would occasionally be in the "wrong" direction. I chose to  write up the walks to give an overall anti-clockwise direction around the southern loop of the route, starting from Shrewsbury - and that became the direction in which we progressed. At the time of writing we have to complete the section of Shropshire Way from Benthall Hall  to Ironbridge and then around the last bit of the sourthern loop back to Shrewsbury (hopefully some time in 2025).

First leg of Shropshire Way (Around Shrewsbury).