UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions - Shropshire

We often find a vintage steam railway to ride on, and headed into nearby Wales to try the Welshpool & Llanfair Caereinion narrow gauge railway.

Here's the engine driver in the historic 1902 steam locomotive on the Welshpool railway.  Wow, just look at all those levers to pull!

Now a look inside the vintage carriages as the train steamed through mid-Wales from Welshpool to the picturesque Banwy Valley at Llanfair Caereinion.

At Llanfair Caereinion we headed into town via this attractive wooden bridge over the River Banwy.  The Welshpool railway was an alternative to the Severn Valley Railway we planned to visit, but the floods of the preceding weeks had disabled it.  See our UK tourist resources for more on the attractions we visit.

After a rather yummy lunch in the Goat in Llanfair we decided on a short scenic walk alongside the rusty looking (caused by soil minerals) River Banwy through the charming Deri woods.  Back at...

...Llanfair Caereinion we had time to enjoy an ice cream as the man oiled the steam engine before the return journey through the scenic Wales countryside on the Welshpool narrow gauge steam railway.

The fare was £10.80 each return for a great day out chuffing through mid-Wales on this very pleasant heritage steam railway.  You might like to check our talkie walkie and camcorder reviews, both handy products for steam railway tourists!

These two guys stood on the carriage open balcony at the back of the train all the way from Llanfair Caereinion to Welshpool, watching the contours of the beautiful countryside roll by at a sedate 16 MPH (according to our Sat Nav).

Back at the holiday cottage Mike, complete with his newly purchased Engine Driver's hat, served the cider we bought in Ludlow the other day.

Day 5 of our Shropshire holiday and a car free one, with a walk from Craven Arms to Aston-on-Clun along part of the Shropshire Way which runs for a circular 139 miles around the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  As you can see, the sun was out as it was all day, no mean feat for the summer of 2007!  We got going and presently...

...hit Broom where we ate our picnic on the village green.  We also visited the Engine and Tether in Broom, but were served by a rather surly young woman.  The Engine and Tether is also a caravanning & camping site, but it all had a rather run down look, sorely in need of a lick of paint... and cheerful staff!

Here's the Flag Tree, or Abour tree, in Aston-on-Clun.  The Abour festival is celebrated every May here and is the only village that still does so.

Aston-on-Clun is a small village and we tried the Kangaroo pub, but as we entered were abruptly informed 'we're closed' - this despite the 'open' sign outside!  Moral - don't bother with the unfriendly pubs in Broom or Aston villages in Shropshire.

Mike had previously stayed in Aston-on-Clun with his family waay back in '75 and was pleased to discover little had changed in the village.  We headed back along a different route, aiming to pick up the Shropshire Way a few miles further along.

After some seriously dodgy signposting along the Shropshire Way we ended up walking some 9½ miles return to our holiday cottage in Craven Arms; it's only 3 miles each way on the map!  Waymarking should be better than this, after all they try to encourage us all to walk to reduce our carbon footprint and keep healthy.  And the village pubs were duff.  Come on, get your act together Shropshire!

On the last day it rained - and rained!  So we visited the Land of Lost Content in Craven Arms, a museum of artefacts from recent bygone times.  The Land of Lost Content is another attraction that doesn't permit photography, if we'd known before paying the £5.00 entrance we wouldn't have bothered.  The Land of Lost Content exhibits were interesting enough, if rather ill maintained.  So we moved on to...

...Acton Scott Historic Working Farm, near Church Stretton, to learn how farming was done over 100 years ago.  We found ourselves the only visitors on such a wet day.  Entrance cost a very reasonable £3.50 at the time of our visit.

We saw the cows being milked by hand at Acton Scott Farm.  There were other working farm demonstrations including rural crafts, the blacksmith and wheelwright, brick making, a nature trail, farm animals and machinery to look at and, of course, a gift shop!

Mike's caption: Can I borrow your brolly please?  Belinda's caption: Under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh eh.  Well, either way, this little pig suddenly turned tail and ran back into its pen at Acton Scott Farm.  Perhaps it thought we'd come to take it to market.

On the way home from our Shropshire holiday we stopped off at Mahorall Farm Cider near Cleehill to sample the ciders and buy some.  The owner was very helpful and his ciders delicious, so a thumbs up for Mahorall Farm Cider in Shropshire.  Yeah!