Distance: around 6 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

Walk from the centre of Shrewsbury to Attingham Park. Walk begins from Shrewsbury Railway Station and joins the River Severn Path to walk through the central Shropshire countryside to a vast country estate created by the newly enobled Berwick Barons in the 1780s and 1790s.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

Ditch the Peasants, Keep the Title

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

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It is a tale as old as the hills (or in a British context the hill forts at least…). A financially successful and politically powerful person decides to really stamp their mark on the planet by building a new house, amidst landscaped grounds, that sweeps away all that was there before it.

In a nutshell this is the story behind Attingham Park near Shrewsbury.

Located near where there are bridges across the River Severn at the village of Atcham, Attingham park, which is today owned and managed by the National Trust, was built in the 1780s and 1790s by Baron Berwick.

The first Baron Berwick was Noel Hill, a Whig Party politician of some skill, who was raised to the peerage in 1784. His family had built up substantial landholdings in Shropshire, buying the land around the village of Berwick Maviston in 1700.

It was this land that he selected to build his grand country estate. The village was swept away to enable the grounds to be landscaped into fashionable, sterile parkland, and an imposing neoclassical great house built.

In this way, far from suggesting a connection to the Scottish borders (as might have been the intention), the name Baron Berwick in fact memorialises this brute act of primitive accumulation. In demolishing Berwick Maviston, Noel Hill lost the village but kept the name.

This building was the height of fashion at the end of the 18th Century, but later critics have not been all that kind to it.

Today following the extinction of the Berwick Barons in the mid-20th Century the property is amongst the National Trust’s most popular. It was attracting the fourth highest number of visitors out of any of the organisation’s sites prior to COVID-19.

As well as being popular, it is a pleasant and easily walkable distance from Shrewsbury along the River Severn Path, making it an attractive prospect as a destination for anybody – not just those into late 18th Century neoclassicism, parklands and long dead vaguely reformist politicians and their long dead vaguely reformist causes.

The Walk

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 through the gateway walk along the long driveway across parkland until you reach the main house.

Getting Back

Buses run from a stop close to the gateway you walked through to reach the Park. 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.