A weekend on the Shropshire Way: historic towns, hill ridges and welcoming pubs
A new Shropshire tourism initiative offers train-accessible weekend hikes along sections of the 297km Shropshire Way. One route from Shrewsbury to Bishop's Castle passes through historic villages, dramatic rock ridges and local pubs.
Shropshire's tourist board has launched a new set of itineraries aimed at travellers who don't have time to walk the entire 297km Shropshire Way. These "rail-ready" short breaks come with downloadable PDF maps, GPX files, accommodation suggestions and lists of highlights along each route.
One such itinerary, the roughly 43km "Heart of the Hills" walk, runs from Shrewsbury to Bishop's Castle via the village of Ratlinghope. The first day begins in Shrewsbury, where the council and the Shropshire Wildlife Trust reintroduced beavers to the county last year after a 400-year absence. A boardwalk through the Old River Bed nature reserve lets visitors view the wetland habitat, including herons and moorhens, even though the beavers themselves remained elusive.
The route continues past fields of flowering rapeseed, through Lyth Hill Country Park and woodland towards Ratlinghope, home to the 12th-century St Margaret's Church, burial site of a 19th-century farmer known as the last "sin-eater" — someone paid to eat bread and drink ale over a corpse to absorb the deceased's sins. The Bridges pub, on the banks of the River Onny, serves food sourced partly from the owners' own regenerative farm.
On the second day, the route crosses the Stiperstones national nature reserve, known for its jagged quartzite rock formations including the Devil's Chair, with skylarks and buzzards overhead. The walk ends in Bishop's Castle, a town of half-timbered houses where little remains of the medieval castle it is named after.
Travellers can return by train from nearby Craven Arms station. The trip described was supported by Visit Shropshire and Visit England, with luggage transfer services provided by a company called Silver Sherpa.
