Along the Moors Trail Wellington Is an Excellent Place to Begin Your Journey
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to Stafford The ‘Discovering Wellington’ Project presents: to Whitchurch A41 A49 Shawbury A518 to Oswestry A53 & N. Wales The Newport A5 A442 Weald Moors Along A518 A458 A49 Wellington M54 SHREWSBURY A5 Atcham 7 M54 6 A5 the Moors A5 5 4 TELFORD A458 A5223 A442 to Birmingham A49 Leighton Shifnal 3 A4169 M54 (M6) A cycle trail linking the historic Ironbridge Albrighton A41 Shropshire market town of A4169 Broseley Much Wenlock A442 to Wolverhampton Wellington to the Weald Moors A454 A458 Church Stretton Bridgnorth A458 A49 to Ludlow & Hereford to Kidderminster to Stourbridge Visit The Weald Moors On Two Wheels… Out and About If you are cycling in the area for the first time, Several of the byways on the Along the Moors trail Wellington is an excellent place to begin your journey. belong to a designated local network of ‘quiet lanes’, The railway station is located in the centre of town a nationwide scheme aimed at preserving the with regular services to and from the West Midlands character of minor country roads and making them and Central Wales. Most local trains have capacity for more accessible to cyclists, horse riders and walkers. up to two bikes (no tandems or tricycles) although a Each participating route has been chosen for its low reservation may be required on some services. For traffic levels and natural capacity to inhibit speeding, more information, visit: while distinctive signs at entry points to the network www.londonmidland.com or are designed to remind motorists of the presence of www.arrivatrainswales.co.uk more vulnerable road users in the area. However, do take care at all times along the trail and remember Secure cycle parking is available at a number of to follow the Highway Code: Ride single file where locations around Wellington town centre, while help the road is narrow, slow down for passing walkers, with spares and repairs can be found at Perry’s Cycles, horse riders and motor vehicles and watch out for 33 Tan Bank. To find out more about the heritage of gravel and greasy roads after rain. The trail contains the area, you can pick up copies of other titles in the several gradients, busy junctions and roundabouts, Discovering Wellington walking and cycle trail series at so always ride positively and decisively. the tourist information centre in the Wellington News shop, Crown Street or visit us online at: www.wellingtonla21.org.uk/discover Welcome to the Weald Moors Just a few miles northeast Whim Cottage, Kynnersley Market Square, Wellington of the ancient market town Glacial Origins Queen of the Moorlands of Wellington lies one of Shropshire’s largest yet little It seems likely the Weald Moors owe their existence to The Along the Moors cycle trail begins and ends in cataclysmic events that occurred during the later stages Wellington, the historic capital of east Shropshire. known wetland habitats – The of the last ice age. At that time, the area comprising the The town was originally an Anglo-Saxon settlement Weald Moors. Hidden between moorlands formed part of the glacial Lake Newport which that appears to have been founded during the 7th in turn drained into the much larger Lake Lapworth. As Century, on a site now occupied by The Green next to the rolling pastures, woodlands the ice began to melt, the lake basin filled with peat and All Saints parish church. In medieval times, cloth and and streams that comprise organic deposits which formed along the course of what leather making became prominent local industries the moorlands is the story of is now the River Strine and its many tributaries. and evidence of their existence can still be found in the names of town centre thoroughfares such as thousands of years of human Walker Street and Tan Bank. However, it was during history, in which prehistoric the Victorian era that the town truly rose to prominence when the arrival of the railway network in east tribes, medieval monks, wealthy Shropshire helped establish Wellington’s reputation as landowners and industrialists Preston Hospital a commercial and agricultural centre second only to the have all left their mark on the . county town of Shrewsbury. Today, Wellington remains Through The Wild Moors a vitally important focal point for east Shropshire and, fragile landscape. So come with with its market and wide array of independent shops, us now and uncover the quiet The Along the Moors cycle trail is a 21-mile circular tour Waters Upton Moor cafes, bars and excellent transport links, it is an ideal of the east Shropshire moorlands; a highly sensitive location to begin your journey onto the moors. mysteries along the moors... lowland peat habitat, characterised by rush-filled Above the peat level, a number of ‘islands’ emerged drainage dykes (known locally as strines), damp upon which settlements, such as Kynnersley and Wall, Harper Adams Tibberton Agricultural College To Newport pastures and wet woodland, extending for over fifty eventually developed, together with other communities square kilometres from the northern outskirts of on the edge of the peat deposits, including Eyton, Preston Waters Upton Edgmond Longford Wellington to the edge of Newport. Until the early and Crudgington. Until at least Roman times, these To Shrewsbury Rodway Adeney Church 1800s, large swathes of the moorlands survived in a island peninsulas were surrounded by fenland and at SHORT ROUTE Aston Crudgington semi-natural state, earning the area the title of the ‘Wild’ Wall Camp a rare, low-lying Iron Age hillfort survives THE WEALD MOORS LONG ROUTE Moors. While this situation was not seen as particularly as a reminder of the moorlands watery past. However, Kynnersley Brockton desirable at that time, peatlands are now recognised as centuries of continuous drainage for agriculture and Steapford Lilleshall a vital ecological resource but one which is very much pressure from urban development on the edge of the Eyton upon the Weald Moors under threat, with peat no longer accumulating in over moors has now put the area’s long-term survival under half Western Europe’s former peatland sites… one fifth threat, so read on to discover the turbulent history and Wappenshall Wall Hillfort of which have already disappeared altogether. hopes for the future of the wild, Weald Moors… Donnington WELLINGTON Wellington’s Dothill Park Dothill and Apley Today Park Walls Like Apley, Dothill was reckoned to be an outlying In 1953, Apley farmstead belonging to Wellington Manor at the time passed to WJC Heading north out of Wellington towards of the Domesday survey in 1086. Although several Meyrick, a minor. the Weald Moors, the highway is lined along prominent local families later owned the estate, it Meyrick later some of its length by large masonry walls is most readily associated with the Foresters, the decided he had no on either side of the carriageway. Just fifty The third Apley Castle hereditary keepers of the Royal forest on The Wrekin. interest in living on years ago, these imposing structures marked The family appear to have acquired Dothill Park in 1602 the estate and in the boundaries of two historic country Grand Re-Designs after quitting Old Hall, their former Wellington home 1955 the contents estates: Apley Castle and Dothill Park. on Holyhead Road. of the house were The Charltons of Apley Sir Alan’s fortified manor house appears to have auctioned and the undergone a series of alterations before a larger, During the property bulldozed Dothill Pool remodelled version of the castellated mansion was early 18th into its cellars. begun on the same site by Andrew Charlton during 1567. Century, the Ironically, the only traces of Apley Castle that now survive The second Apley Castle was eventually completed F o r e s t e r s are those of the Elizabethan house and its outbuildings, in 1620 but soon began to attract attention for all the affected a which were converted into stables and offices when the wrong reasons. The house was the only defendable series of radical third castle was built. Despite modern development on property of any size within the vicinity of Wellington a l t e ra t i o n s its fringes, large areas of the wooded inner park also and in 1643, after the outbreak of the English Civil War, to the estate, remain intact, including the pool remodelled from a clay it was garrisoned by the Royalist army. A number of laying out Dothill Park in Edwardian times pit dug to provide bricks for the Georgian house. sieges took place on the site and the house sustained over 7 hectares of formal gardens to the west of the The inner park is home to a wide variety of trees serious damage after being slighted by the King’s house, complete with a pool made to look like a canal At Dothill, many features of the formal gardens created army in order that it could not fall under the control of and a grass amphitheatre. Horticultural upheavals by the Foresters had reverted to open grassland by Apley Castle was the home of the Charlton family and Parliamentary forces again. aside, Dothill went on to enjoy a relatively uneventful the end of the 1700s. The estate continued in private their descendants from at least the end of the 13th Century history compared with Apley, although it did play an ownership until the 1950s, when it was sold to to the mid 1950s. It is not clear when they acquired the indirect part in the French Revolution. During the Wellington Urban District Council, who demolished property but they were certainly its owners by 1290, uprising, George Forester accommodated a number of the house and developed the parkland for housing.