Five Towns Trail
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The Five Towns Wrekin Trail A heritage cycle trail linking Dawley five historic east Shropshire towns to The Wrekin Hill Much Wenlock Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Following the Trail The Five Towns Wrekin Trail is a circular cycle tour linking Wellington, Oakengates, Dawley, Madeley and Ironbridge to The Wrekin – part of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The trail utilises existing sections of the National Cycle Network and other traffic-free routes but involves some interaction with other road users. Take care at all times and always follow the highway code: ride single file where the road is narrow, slow down for passing walkers, horse riders and other vehicles and watch out for gravel or greasy roads after rain. There are several steep gradients and busy junctions en route, so always ride decisively and positively. Secure cycle parking facilities and help with spares and repairs can be found at various points along the route – for details, consult the map in the centre of this booklet. To discover more about The Wrekin and other local heritage attractions in east Shropshire visit: www.wellingtonla21.org.uk/discover Written by Marc Petty. Photography by Gordon Dickins and Marc Petty. Designed by MA Creative and printed by Graphic & Print, Telford Thanks to: Gordon Dickins, Cath Landles, Glenn Bishton, Alec Connah, Neil Clarke, Shelagh Lewis, John Powell, Malcolm Peel, George Evans, John Hughes, Geoff Shinner, Pete Lambert, and the Shropshire Hills AONB Partnership. This re-print is supported by: Second Edition © Wellington Local Agenda 21 Group 2012 The Wrekin and Lawrence’s Hill Welcome to Wrekin Country Glenn Bishton The Wrekin is one of the Midlands most iconic natural landmarks and a popular destination for thousands of visitors every year. Stretched out below the hill is a lesser known but equally remarkable Little Haye, Church Steet, Madeley The Wrekin is a local stronghold for the Common Redstart green network of wildlife sites and historic landscapes where five towns that helped shape the world we know today The Five Towns important series of former pit mounds that form all grew up. So come with us now and explore the Five Towns Wrekin Trail... The Five Towns Wrekin Trail is a 16-mile circular a regular feature of the trail. Here, species-rich cycle tour linking The Wrekin Hills to Wellington, regenerated woodlands provide an urban refuge THE FIVE TOWNS WREKIN TRAIL TOWNS FIVE THE Oakengates, Dawley, Madeley and Ironbridge. Each for mini-beasts, reptiles and insects and a colourful WREKIN TRAIL TOWNS FIVE THE Landscape Heritage of the towns has intimate links with The Wrekin, source of autumn berries and drupes for a varied The varied geology of The Wrekin Hills has helped and at least three of them began life as clearings range of local birdlife. The green network provides create a spectacular landscape that is officially in the vast woodlands that once surrounded the recreational access for over 100, 000 people and recognised as part of the Shropshire Hills Area hill, which by Norman times formed part of a Royal is a great way to get out in to The Wrekin Hills. Just of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Aside from being Forest extending for over 120 square miles. As with turn to the map in the centre pages of this booklet to home to the largest area of woodland in east the hill itself, geology played a starring role in the begin your journey into Wrekin country... Shropshire, there are heathlands, wetlands and fortunes of the surrounding area, where plentiful wooded dingles that are home to a wide variety supplies of coal, ironstone and clay helped put of flora and fauna. As you might expect, the rich east Shropshire at the forefront of the Industrial mineral wealth of the area has long made it a target Revolution from the early 1700s. The formation The Wrekin from The Ercall for industrial activity. However, old mine workings of industrial partnerships that combined the Connah Alec and former quarries are now being re-colonised, extraction of minerals and aggregates with the The Wrekin Hills providing important habitats for rare plants and production of iron, bricks and tiles created a boom The Wrekin and its sister hills have been a insects that thrive in reclaimed grasslands such that changed the fortunes of all our towns, without favoured visitor location for at least the last three as those found at the foot of The Ercall, which is which several of them would not exist in their thousand years, in which time Celtic tribes, Roman now famed for the geological exposures created present form at all. legions and medieval monarchs have all left their by years of quarrying. own indelible mark on the landscape. However, The Green Network to find the area’s true lineage we need to go much The Wrekin Hills are connected to the five towns of The Blue Pool further back… to a time when Shropshire was the former east Shropshire coalfield by the green located roughly where the Falkland Islands are network — an officially designated corridor of open Find out More: The Wrekin Hills and the today. It was here that The Wrekin first emerged, spaces defined by their ecological value, visual former east Shropshire coalfield are home to in a period of mountain building 566 million years quality and recreational worth. The varied nature of a tremendous array of natural and landscape ago. Despite its size, The Wrekin is not the oldest the industrial concerns that once blighted the local heritage… far more than we can fit into a hill in the range – that honour belongs to the Little landscape have helped to create ideal conditions 20-page publication! Look out for boxes like this Hill, which, at 677 million years old, contains rocks for its natural reclamation, resulting in the precious throughout the booklet, which contain links to that pre-date life on Earth itself. and varied habitats that now comprise the network. sources of more detailed information that will all Cycling around Little Hll One of its most distinctive features is a nationally add to your enjoyment of the journey Market Square, Wellington Away Days The Wrekin’s The arrival of the railway quite literally split Wellington in half, cutting off the Anglo-Saxon Market Town settlement around All Saints church from the Just a mile from the Forest Glen, medieval Market Square. However, it was more WELLINGTON the trail reaches the first of our than just the physical appearance of the town that WELLINGTON five towns. Wellington, the historic changed and, within just a few years, the whole capital of east Shropshire, has area enjoyed an era of unprecedented prosperity enjoyed close links to The Wrekin thanks to its new rail links. Although the costs of travelling by train were initially expensive, The Ercall Reservoir: it once supplied for many centuries and, after the Wellington’s drinking water coming of the railways, was the developments in the second half of the 1800s, principal destination for thousands of visitors wishing to ascend the hill. such as the introduction of cheap fares, helped many families enjoy day trips for the first time. The Halfway to the Glen growth of white-collar jobs and the introduction of Wellington was well positioned to take advantage Here Come the Trains bank holidays gave many people more free time of the popularity of these new pastimes and rail While Wellington always enjoyed close links to and this was reflected in the growth of the leisure passengers began to flock to the town in order The Wrekin Hills, the arrival of the railway, in movement, which championed activities such as to visit The Wrekin, hiring horses and traps from June 1849, exposed the area’s many charms to a cycling and walking. local hotels for the journey. One local businessman much wider audience. This event was probably took advantage of rising demand by opening a the biggest upheaval the town had seen since refreshment room at the foot of the hill in 1889. Henry 1244, when Lord of the Manor Giles de Erdington Pointon’s Forest Glen Pavilion took its name from the acquired Wellington’s first royal charter. Then, small wooded valley between Lawrence’s Hill and Bowring Park: an excellent stopping-off point the settlement that had developed around All The Wrekin, which legend decrees was constructed between Wellington and The Wrekin Saints church expanded southwards towards by King Henry I to shorten the journey to Bridgnorth a new Market Square that quickly became the for his troops. The pavilion alone was not enough to Wellington under The Wrekin heart of the community. Evidence of these sate the appetite of weary travellers and, further up The journey from The Wrekin Hills into the leafy distant events still endures in the town centre, the hill, another tea room was established. Unlike the suburbs of Wellington presents an almost seamless in its medieval street grid and the long, narrow Forest Glen, which closed in 1990, the Halfway House transition between town and country that has interiors of many of its shops. These ‘burgage still serves visitors and is open for business on most long made the area popular with local people. In tenements’ were laid out after the charter and weekends and bank holidays. medieval times, the land between Holyhead Road vested with special privileges in order to entice and The Ercall was an enclosure for deer where merchants to move to the fledgling town. A5223 Leegomery cattle could also be grazed for most of the year. Clues to the existence of Wellington Hay, as it was Wellington D known, can be seen around town in street names A O R E I D G Hadley BR and pub signs: both Haygate Road and The Wickets, Y A H for example, refer to former entrances into the deer AD O All Saints Parish Church R ATE A5223 G park.