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Shifnal Walk

Lodge Hill and Wesley Brook

Map illustrated byKendall Walford from Oldbury Wells School

Start/parking: Shifnal, Village Hall car park, Aston Street. Grade: Moderate. Distance: Four and a quarter miles. Terrain: Principally level with a few easy gradients. Can be muddy in parts. Refreshments: None en route. Wide choice in Shifnal. Recommended map: OS Explorer 242 Telford and Wrekin.

With only a modest effort walkers can enjoy good views from the top of Lodge Hill with a distant backdrop of the Brown Clee and Titterstone Clee hills. Nearer at hand is the Wrekin. The route then makes a gentle descent to Sunnyside and on down to Evelith with its fine mill house and the Wesley Brook - once the power source for numerous mills.

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The Route

(1) Leave the car park via an alleyway which goes off from the car park on the opposite side to the village hall and which runs alongside the Co-op store. At the end go left to cross the end of Aston Street and go straight ahead under the railway bridge to walk along Park Street, passing the Jerningham Apartments and then the Park House Hotel.

(2) When the road bends to the left, go right along Park Lane - signed Grindle and Kemberton - with the former workhouse on the right. Pass St Andrew's School, left, and the entrance to Lodge Hill Farm, right.

(3) Immediately after the last houses on the right -a row of white cottages - go right on a signed footpath which, initially, follows a rough driveway. When the drive ends at a gate cross the adjacent stile and go ahead on the wide path, with a pool on the left. Keep the clear path as it bends left, now with a hedge on the left and goes up the field left-hand boundary. In the field corner continue straight ahead, now with a hedge on your right. Cross a facing stile and go ahead on the gentle ascent of Lodge Hill, keeping to the right-hand boundary. The actual summit with its trig point is out of bounds in the trees to the right.

(4) Within a short distance of cresting the hill bear off half left and walk downhill on a faint path to a stile to enter the yard of Sunnyside Farm. Go forward through the farmyard and out on the driveway, passing a bungalow, on the right.

(5) At the end of the bungalow garden, where the driveway swings left, go right over a stile. Immediately go half right a few steps to another stile to enter woodland. Go half left, as indicated, to go ahead on a meandering path through the trees which generally runs parallel with the boundary fence, left. The route eventually bears slightly right as it makes its descent to a stile in the grounds of a house. Cross and go half left and ahead on path which becomes crazy paving. At an outbuilding go right, as indicated, then left and out on the driveway to exit on to the lane at Evelith, with its fine mill house to the left.

(6) Go right to cross the bridge over the Wesley Brook and within a few steps go right over a stile. Go ahead through a coppice. Cross a stile and go ahead on the field right-hand boundary with the stream and former mill ponds to the right. Cross another stile, ignore a conservation path, left, and continue ahead. When the field-edge path bends sharp right to a bottom corner, go ahead. Keep the well-trodden path as it follows the foot of a steep bank, left, and passes through an area of rough vegetation, with the brook on the right, eventually arriving at a footbridge. Do not cross the bridge, but continue ahead on a sunken path. This is the site of a paper mill.

(7) At a T-junction go right on a track which swings left and then goes ahead. Few yards before end of the track go left at a waymark post up a steepish gravel path. Go left on a concrete roadway for about 10 yards, then go right on a clear path which keeps to the left-hand boundary to follow three sides of the sewage works, eventually arriving at a stile. Continue ahead on the clear path to reach Manor Barns. Go left over the stile and keep the enclosed path which follows the boundary fence of the gardens. Cross a stile and go left and ahead on a driveway. At Mill Cottage - site of another mill - bear left keeping the driveway to exit on to a road on the edge of Shifnal.

(8) Go right on the pavement. At an island go straight ahead on Church Street. At a T-junction go left to retrace steps back to the car park.