Difficulty of the terrain: medium
Distance: 4.8 miles
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Relatively short but varied walk from Ironbridge, across the River Severn and through the mid-Shropshire countryside, to atmospheric Much Wenlock.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
Gone to Earth
Much Wenlock is one of those Midland towns which has a sense of grandeur and tradition that belies its size. Nowadays its population, like that of comparable Henley-in-Arden way out to the south and east in Warwickshire, or Upton-upon-Severn in the region’s very south, hovers somewhere just below 3,000. This is about the lowest the population of a town can go, before it morphs into being a village, and not an especially large one at that.
Much Wenlock’s status as a town therefore, largely rests upon its history and sense of self. Visiting the town which stands at one end of the spectacular Wenlock Edge, a narrow limestone escarpment running south west to Craven Arms, forming one of the limbs of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is to encounter a settlement with a historic core, that like Wirksworth or Castleton in Derbyshire, or Bishop’s Castle (unfortunately pretty much impossible to access for the day without a car at present) nearer Wales, which projects confidence an importance. Qualities which despite its grand situation amidst the sharp hills and dells of the mid-Shropshire countryside, sleepy contemporary Much Wenlock.
The town first enters the historical record in the late 7th Century (though it is speculated that the history of settlement on the site is far longer), when Merewalh son of the legendary Mercian King Penda established a religious house there. Merewalh was the King of Magonsæte, one of Mercia’s cadet kingdoms which had boundaries broadly codeterminous with the parts of the modern Midlands counties of: Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire west of the River Severn. It must have been fairly significant to him because in 687 it is known that he installed Milburga his daughter as abbess.
Purportedly Merewalh’s abbey at Much Wenlock was destroyed by a very westerly Viking raid in 874. However, a large religious order remained an important part of the local topography and fabric of society, with a priory being re-founded in both the 11th and 12th Century by significant local nobility. The first of these re-foundations being by Leofric of Mercia, whose memory is now eclipsed in fame, or certainly Midlands myth, by the story of his wife Godiva.
In common with all the other religious houses in England and Wales, Much Wenlock Priory was closed as a religious order during the 1530s, as part of Henry VIII’s (primarily self-serving) attempts at Christian Reformation. The ruins still stand proud and prominent on the eastern edge of the town. They are cared for by English Heritage, and give the impression of a once substantial establishment which would have dominated the surrounding area. The ruins can be visited year round, albiet only being open at weekends during the colder parts of the year.
Which is not to claim that medieval Much Wenlock was a primarily ecclesiastical settlement. In 1468 the burghers of the town were granted a council charter making their community autonomous. The town’s lands stretched across central Shropshire, into the Ironbridge Gorge, and across the River Severn into what today is part of Telford. At the time it was the largest borough in England outside the liberty of the City of London covering 71 square miles.
During the Early Modern period local councils like Much Wenlock possessed substantial judicial as well as administrative responsibilities. Infamously in 1546 for reasons lost to history, Alice Glaston, an 11 year old girl from Little Wenlock within Much Wenlock’s council area, was executed in the town. She is not however, the youngest person known to have been executed in England, that instead is John Dean, an 8 or 9 year old boy from Abingdon, then in Berkshire, who was executed for arson in 1629. It is worth noting that while the capital punishment of older teenagers and adults was a frequent occurrence for many crimes in England up until the 1830s, the execution of young people was always controversial, and of children, very rare. So what precisely Alice Glaston was thought to have done to deserve this fate has been a cause of much speculation: witchcraft in some form is the frequent assumption.
Much Wenlock endured as a borough, albeit with shifting boundaries and changing responsibilities, for practically 500 years until 1966 when Much Wenlock was merged with Bridgnorth to form a new south east Shropshire district. Interestingly, and uniquely to my knowledge, the old Borough of Much Wenlock road signs which welcomed mid-20th Century motorists to villages like Coalport within the old council area’s bounds have been retained and are preserved affixed to the walls of an undercroft space used for market stalls below the old Much Wenlock Guildhall. Above the Guildhall has been preserved much as it was when for nearly half a millennia it was the centre of the old borough.
Much Wenlock’s picturesque situation and atmospheric historic centre, coupled with the fact that it feels rather more remote than it actually is (the edge of Telford being only around 5 miles to the east albeit on the far side of the River Severn, and the larger town of Broseley even closer) makes it a popular day trip and holiday destination. It has also given it a cultural significance. In the late 1940s Powell and Pressberger filmed their lauded 1950 movie Gone to Earth there. More recently in 1993 the first episode of Channel 4’s Time Team to be filmed (the third to be broadcast) was made there. More remarkably the town also has a claim to have held an event which was a precursor to the establishment of the modern Olympic Games back in Victorian times. A varient – the annual Wenlock Olympian Games – persists to this day. This was recognised by the Olympic Torch Relay ahead of the 2012 London Games visiting Much Wenlock and in the decision of the London organisers to name the event’s mascot “Wenlock”.
The Walk
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
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This walk from Ironbridge to Much Wenlock begins at Ironbridge’s principal bus stop in the car park behind the Museum of the Gorge.
Upon alighting the bus, walk across the car park towards the low lying, brick warehouse, built for the Coalbrookdale Iron Company in the 1840s fronting onto the River Severn, that houses the Museum of the Gorge. When you reach the back of the museum, turn right and walk up towards the mouth of the car park and the main road running through Ironbridge.
On reaching the road turn right and follow the road along the River Severn through Ironbridge.
Continue along it for around half a mile until you reach the centre of the village clustered around the famous Iron Bridge.
Here, turn right and cross the bridge over the River Severn.
On the far side walk a short distance towards a road, looking out on your right for a bridleway style footpath using the trackbed of the old Kidderminster to Shrewsbury Railway (repurposed from Bridgnorth south as the heritage Severn Valley Railway).
Turn right and walk down this track. Continue along the track, walking high above the River Severn, for quite some distance, passing the point where you began the walk at Ironbridge’s main bus stop.
Presently you reach the end of the track near the boundary of what was once Buildwas Power Station, prior to its decommissioning in 2015 and final demolition of its distinctive salmon pink cooling towers in the summer of 2021.
Here there is a gateway to your left. Turn left and pass through it.
On the far side of the gateway turn left and walk up a short stretch of steeply sloping path.
Soon you come to a junction, here turn right, now following waymarks for the Shropshire Way.
Continue straight along the wide track through the woodland for quite some distance. Quite early on while walking this section you come to a fork in the path (the left hand of which was close when I walked the route in November 2023 due to a landslip). Here take the wider, less steep, right hand arm.
As you walk you pass beneath a series of large, crackling power lines. They once served Buildwas Power Station and remain a key part of the National Grid.
Presently, approaching the edge of the woodland you come to a curve in the track. Here turn right as the track narrows, entering a thicket of trees.
Keep on heading to the right as you approach the open countryside.
Presently you see a stile in front of you leading out into sheep pasture.
Cross the stile and head out into the pasture, the rolling hills of central Shropshire visible all around.
Walk across the field keeping close to the hedge and fence line on your right.
Soon you come to another stile which you cross leading into a second pasture above a small cluster of houses called The Vineyard.
On the other side of the stile turn left and cross the pasture heading downhill towards The Vineyard.
Here you find a metal footgate which you pass through.
On the far side in front of you there is a driveway leading away from The Vineyard. Continue straight ahead walking down the driveway.
Continue along the driveway for some distance as it twists across the undulating Shropshire countryside, up and down dells.
Rising from the bottom of one dell you reach a public road.
Upon reaching this public lane turn right and walk straight ahead for a short distance.
You reach a large old stone farmhouse with tall chimneys where the road forks.
Here, turn left.
Having walked a very short distance, the road curves around sharply to the right past another large old stone farmhouse.
Continue along the road for quite some distance across the rural landscape.
After some distance you pass a large house on your right.
A little further on the road curves around sharply to the right and you walk downhill towards a small cluster of buildings including a community centre.
Just past the community centre approaching a farm you see a waymarking post off on the left.
The waymarking post on the left marks a bridleway – bound by hedges – leading out into fields.
Upon reaching the open fields walk straight ahead, following a track along the hedge on the right hand side.
Presently on the far side of the field you come to a metal footgate which you pass through.
On the far side of the gate there is a clear path across the meadow beyond leading to a thicket beside a stream.
Enter the thicket and walk over a bridge across the stream.
On the far side, clamber down a short flight of steps to where the path runs to the left around the end of a cottage’s garden.
Past the cottage you come out onto a driveway. On reaching the driveway turn left.
Continue along the driveway for some distance approaching the edge of Much Wenlock. Soon you pass a Severn Trent sewage treatment works, and the driveway turns into a fully tarmacked road.
Presently the road curves around sharply to the left and you continue along the quiet road approaching the ruins of Wenlock Priory.
The road runs through the car park for the ruins and you continue straight ahead past the site to the edge of the town.
Upon reaching the edge of Much Wenlock keep on straight along the road heading for the town centre.
Soon you reach one of the main roads through Much Wenlock’s historic centre.
Here, turn left and walk a short distance towards Much Wenlock’s Holy Trinity Parish Church and the old borough Guildhall, in front of a little square.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
At the time of writing in November 2023, Much Wenlock was served by a reasonably frequent (roughly hourly into the evening) bus service between Bridgnorth and Shrewsbury. With other less frequent services (four a day, throughout the day) to Telford, going via Ironbridge where the walk began.