Distance: around 7 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Walk from the centre of Shrewsbury to Wroxeter Roman City. Walk begins from Shrewsbury Railway Station and joins the River Severn path to walk through the central Shropshire countryside to one of Britian’s most important Roman sites.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Wroxeter: Motorway City of the Roman Age

Today the tiny village of Wroxeter, near the River Severn between Shrewsbury and the Ironbridge Gorge in mid-Shropshire, is home to several dozen people.

During the Roman occupation of Britain it (or rather Viroconium Cornoviorum) is believed to have been home to around 15,000 people. This made it the fourth largest city in Roman Britain, granting it a status akin to that enjoyed by Leeds in contemporary England.

Whilst the site has been extensively excavated over the course of many decades it remains something of a mystery as to how a city in what was a relative backwater in a peripheral province got to be so big.

Viroconium Cornoviorum’s origins lie in the decades immediately after the Roman occupation of what is now southern and central England, when a fort was built on the site.

After Wales – with its vast mineral wealth – was also brought pretty firmly into the Roman Empire’s control in the decades that followed, the need for a fort at a key juncture of the River Severn in what is now Shropshire declined. It was in the early Second Century that the now obsolete fortress was cleared away and replaced with a civilian forum allowing for trade and a municipal, rather than a military, government.

By the end of that century it is estimated that Wroxeter Roman City (as English Heritage markets the site) covered 70 hectares of land and the population had reached around 15,000. The most plausible reason for this expansion is believed to be that it was a major trading hub for Wales and the surrounding areas of Roman Britain, with key trade routes passing through into the fertile agricultural lands of what is now central England.

Several Roman roads converged on the site, where there was undoubtedly a river crossing, and it is quite possible that there were docks allowing for the transshipment of goods down the Severn as far as the Bristol Channel. This may have made Viroconium Cornoviorum a major inland river port, akin to York’s role in Yorkshire during the middle ages.

The end of the Roman’s occupation of Britain in 410 AD did not spell the end for Viroconium Cornoviorum. It remained a key centre for Welsh tribes in the area until at least the 7th, if not the 8th Century, at which point it was evidently pretty conclusively abandoned. In the centuries that followed a new seat of local power emerged in central Shropshire, but this time it was a little further north, at a mighty bend in the River Severn, a place which to this day is the centre of local commercial and political power: Shrewsbury.

Today English Heritage maintains a small visitor centre on the site. Here a few sections of the town centre – including the rugged “Old Work” gateway which has miraculously survived above ground for nearly 2,000 years – can be viewed.

The bulk of the Roman settlement however, remain under the surrounding fields and outlying farms and other houses, dotted around this quiet corner of the Severn’s Shropshire plain, allowing visitor’s imaginations to do the work.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the gpx. from Dropbox

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.

From the main exit of Shrewsbury Railway Station, turn right and walk around the side of the forecourt.

This leads you out onto a main road.

Once on the main road turn right again and head under a series of railway bridges.

Having passed under these bridges make a further right turn.

Thenwalk up a slight hill with a a Royal Mail depot on your left and the raised railway station complex on your right.

Soon you come to the grim hulk of Shrewsbury Prison on your left.

This originally 18th and 19th Century structure, could be nothing other than a prison and mirror’s Shrewsbury’s red sandstone castle perched on a rocky outcrop on the other side of the station.

Like other county towns Shresbury has a long and notorious history regarding the administration of “justice”. Including the infamous “Shrewsbury 24” case in the early 1970s, which saw 24 striking construction workers prosecuted for their trade union activities. Several were jailed in Wales and the midlands region, including Ricky Tomlinson.

Shrewsbury Prison closed in 2013 and the buildings were transferred to the private sector. Parts of it are currently utilised by an events company who – tastefully or not depending on your palette – host escape rooms and corporate team building type exercises there.

Having passed the old prison gates turn left down the road that runs parallel with its eastern wall.

You soon leave to old gaol behind and enter a section of the road lined with terraced houses.

Presently you come to a three way junction.

Here, turn left.

At the bottom of a short road you come to the edge of the River Severn.

Cross over the river by means of a footbridge.

On the other side head into a small park.

Walk across the park by means of a footpath.

Once on the other side head down a further street of 19th Century terraced houses.

This slopes slowly uphill.

Remain on this road for several hundred metres, crossing several other roads along the way.

Eventually you reach a larger road. Cross over here as well.

On the far side carry on walking down the road you have already been heading along.

Now however, there is an estate of semi-detached council houses on one side, and older terraces on the other.

Keep on walking straight, rounding a slight kink in the road, until you spot an underpass ahead of you.

Walk through the underpass.

On the other side, continue walking straight ahead.

You are now passing through a rather interesting post-war estate, also seemingly council built.

It has some fine architecture from the immediate post-war period.

This includes the interesting, green lead roofed (perhaps aptly) semi-detached tower of Saint Winefride’s Roman Catholic Church.

Continue walking straight along the road as it leads through the estate.

Presently it bends round to the left quite considerably, just by the entrance to Belvidere secondary school.

Just after this point there is an interesting 1960s vintage pub, now derelict. One of its more recent incarnations was apparently as a curry house.

Soon after this point the post-war council estate gives way to bungalows and other houses, probably built in the 1980s, for private purchasers.

At this point it feels like you are potentially in danger of ending up at the bottom of a clu-de-sec. But keep on walking straight, remaining on the road you have been following, more or less consistently, since you left the park on the edge of the town centre.

Indeed, presently you reach a t-junction at what is apparently the end of the road. A tall coniferous hedge serving much as the buffers at the end of a train line or the bay of a bus station.

This is not a dead end, however.

If you walk across the road to the verge beyond and head slightly left a footpath appears in the hedge.

Heading through here you soon double back to the right.

Then at the bottom of the slope, having passed a life ring on the way down, you come to the river side.

Shrewsbury is on a great loop in the River Severn. It would be possible to walk from the centre near the station to the point you are currently stood at via the Severn Path, however, that would be quite time consuming, so far better to cut the corner by walking through the suburbs.

Once on the Severn Path turn right and start walking along it.

It is very clear where to walk all the way, however, the path undulates a lot and zig-zags, with the course of the river and how it has sliced through the land.

I found the first sections of the path especially, certainly in February when I walked the route, to be incredibly slippy. This was probably due to the river flooding and leaving sediment on the path, so do take care.

Presently the arches of the mid-Victorian railway bridge which carries trains to and from the West Midlands conurbation into the town, comes into view.

It is a seriously impressive piece of engineering.

After the bridge you walk through quite a thickly wooded section.

Before the path opens up again into a more typically open riverbank vista.

The path sometimes runs close to the river here, sometimes a little way inland. It is often crisscrossed by little brooks draining into the mighty river. Generally though, the walking is easier here.

There was building work, probably for new houses, taking place when I undertook the walk, up on the bank away from the river. Testimony to Shrewsbury’s relative affluence and the fact that it is a pleasant place to live. But also, I imagine a little foolhardy, building so close to a big river famous for being prone to major floods.

Eventually you reach the late 20th Century concrete bridge that carries the A5 dual carriageway heading north over the river. This is less elegant, being essentially brute, in compression to the Victorian railway bridge. But it is also a really impressive piece of engineering. Quiet and effective testimony to the skill of Shropshire’s engineers and road workers.

Having passed the road bridge you are heading out beyond the edge of Shrewsbury.

Properly maintained gates begin to appear on the river path, intended to stop livestock wandering.

It is still a fairly straightforward route to follow, but there are a few kinks in the trail.

Approaching a farm the path heads slightly away from the river.

Just after the farm, there is a gate.

Here there is a well worth path leading straight ahead. However, this is a false friend, the path having been created by members of an angling club walking to their pitches along the river bank. At this point instead turn right and walk through the footgate.

Then follow the path across the field some way.

Presently passing through another gate in a little thicket.

Following the path around the perimeter of a field.

Then turning right at a bend in the river as on the far bank an impressive tree topped river cliff rises up to your left.

After Some distance you come to a gated wooden bridge over a ditch flowing into the Severn.

Once across it, keeping following the path in the direction of a house just to your left.

Shortly after passing the house and its grounds the path slopes uphill somewhat through a thicket of bushes.

At the top you encounter a gate.

Having passed through the gate you emerge onto a pavement section of the B4380.

Turn left and walk along the pavement.

After several minutes walking, with the Severn on your left and the fairly busy main road on your right, you see the village of Atcham in the distance.

Prior to the creation of the unitary Shropshire County Council in 2009, Shropshire was split into numerous districts, many of which had absolutely tiny populations. One of the largest in population was Shrewsbury and Atcham, which to this day remains the name of the area’s parliamentary constituency. Apparently Atcham, population circa 242, is by far the smallest place in the UK to be referenced in a constituency name in this way.

At Atcham you cross the River Severn for the third time on the walk.

In view of the unusually named St. Eata (named after a 7th Century Northumbrian bishop) which serves as the village’s church, and the Mytton and Mermaid Hotel, there stand two bridges.

On the other side of the Severn you approach an ornate entrance to Attingham Park.

Once home to the Berwick Barons. Another faint connection to the far north east of England… The family came to prominence in the politics of the 18th Century, however, since the male line became extinct in 1947 the property has been owned and managed by the National Trust. The property has the kind of history typical of a stately home constructed in the 1790s, including political intrigue and connections between the wealth the family possessed and the Caribbean plantation system. Indeed the property’s contents and material fabric includes items such as wallpaper that were likely produced by enslaved people. There is also the fact that there is no longer a village of Attingham, that having been swept away along with the pre-existing manor house on the site, the construct the house that exists to this day.

Having passed the grand gateway, continue walking along the road.

The pavement carries on stretching in front of you.

Off in the distance to your right stands Gleedon Hill, on the far side of which nestles the village of Much Wenlock.

Presently on your left the main house at Attingham Park becomes visible through the fence.

Soon after that you can see the full unencumbered vista of parkland and the main house in the distance.

The best views are from an ornate bridge across the River Tern, just before its marshy confluence with the Severn.

Shortly after crossing the River Tern you approach another ornate, classically inspired 18th Century gatehouse.

Immediately across from this structure on your left another smaller road leads off towards some woodland.

Cross over the road and head left at this junction.

Take care in this section as whilst its not incredibly busy I did find that quite a few cars use it, even near the middle of the day.

Presently after several minutes walking another far smaller road, really a semi-paved lane appears on your left.

This road leads off into the woodland, head down it.

Soon the road begins to slope upwards.

A little further on and the woodland clears being replaced by impressive views across to the hilly landscape of southern and western Shropshire near the border with Wales.

Eventually you reach another wooded section and the houses that comprise the modern settlement, no more than a hamlet, of Wroexter.

Here you come to a junction and turn left.

A few metres further on and the road forks again.

Take the left fork here as well, keeping on straight.

Leaving the woodland around the village behind you, walk along a lane lined with hedges.

Presently on your right the jagged edges of the so-called “Old Work” , a gigantic heavily weathered Roman gateway, still standing after nearly 2,000 years, comes into view.

As you walk further towards the site more of it comes into view.

On your left stands a brightly painted replica Roman villa constructed in the early 2010s as a demonstration of what such structures were like.

To your right just after the Roman remains stands the entrance to the site and its museum. These are housed in a quintessential 1970s Historic Monuments Commission (the predecessor organisation to English Heritage who now manage the site) structure.

The building and its car park is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

Buses run from the main road immediately after the little car park for the site and the museum structure. They are currently (in early 2022) every hour during the morning and afternoon. Arriva runs little buses that run to and fro between Shrewsbury and Telford and back again. There is one bus each way every two hours, providing an hourly service along the road. For me heading back to Birmingham by train this was fine as I could catch a train from either Shrewsbury or Telford. However, if you only want to go to one of them, or somewhere along the route like the Ironbridge Gorge, then your options are more limited. Once at Shrewsbury or Telford there are buses to a wide range of Shropshire destinations, and trains towards Wales, the north west and the West Midlands conurbation.