Explore the area

Follow the
Severn

There's plenty to discover beyond your canoe. From historic towns and riverside pubs to beautiful walks and family adventures, here are a few places worth exploring while you're in our patch.

Scroll to travel downstream ↓

01 · Where the loop begins

Shrewsbury

Medieval streets tangled inside a great big bend of the Severn. Independent shops, the Quarry park and more timber framing than you can photograph in a day.

The lodge and gardens of the Quarry park in Shrewsbury — DOThe Quarry & DingleTwenty-nine acres of riverside park with Percy Thrower's sunken flower garden at the centre. The easiest hour you'll spend in town.

The Elizabethan Old Market Hall in Shrewsbury's Square — SEEThe Old Market HallA 1596 stone market hall in The Square, now an independent cinema and café. Coffee under 400-year-old arches.

Timber-framed buildings on Castle Street in Shrewsbury — DOWander the shutsCastle Street, Wyle Cop and the narrow passageways between them — the best independent shopping between Chester and Ludlow.

02 · Two bridges, one village

Atcham

A handful of houses, a Norman church and two bridges side by side over slow, wide water. Blink and you'd miss it — which is rather the point.

WORTH THE DETOUR ↓

The portico columns of Attingham Park mansion — DOAttingham ParkA National Trust mansion with a deer park, walled garden and miles of parkland walks — ten minutes from the water.

The Mytton and Mermaid hotel at Atcham — EATThe Mytton & MermaidThe white coaching inn opposite the park gates. Proper Sunday lunches, riverside beer garden and rooms upstairs if you fancy staying put.

The stone Church of St Eata at Atcham — SEESt Eata's ChurchThe only church in England dedicated to St Eata, built partly from stones robbed out of Roman Wroxeter next door.

03 · Where the world changed

Ironbridge

The first iron bridge on earth, thrown across a wooded gorge in 1779. A World Heritage Site that still smells faintly of ambition — and now, fudge.

KATIE'S PICK →

The Iron Bridge reflected in the River Severn — SEEThe Iron BridgeAbraham Darby III's 1779 arch, restored to its original red-brown. Walk it, then look up at it from the riverbank — that's the view.

Victorian street scene at Blists Hill Victorian Town — DOBlists HillA whole Victorian town rebuilt in the valley — change your money into shillings and buy chips fried in beef dripping.

Displays of ironware inside the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron — RSC pickKatie's pick: Museum of IronCoalbrookdale, where it all started. Smaller than Blists Hill, quieter, and the bit that actually explains the gorge.

Houses and shops climbing the hillside at Ironbridge — EATThe village itselfCafés, tea rooms and pubs stacked up the hill either side of the bridge. Nowhere is more than five minutes' walk.

04 · High Town, Low Town

Bridgnorth

A town stacked on a sandstone cliff, joined by England's steepest inland funicular. Steam trains below, a leaning castle above, and our busiest launch just downstream.

MONTY'S TOWN ↓