The best gravel rides around Neen Savage

The YHA are trying to stop ruining this house itself, giving it back to the National Trust to manage as well as own. Trouble is, the NT don't run Youth Hostels. So no idea about it's future. The Cadbury Trust gave it to the Trust in the 1930s under the condition of it being a Youth Hostel in perpetuity. So who knows? Want to run it yourself as a franchise? I think that might be their hope.

Nice trail joining Wyre Forest to Bewdley

Cofee break

Much Wenlock is a stunningly beautiful medieval town. Walking about town is like going back in time with its great selection of traditional shops and all offering good old-fashioned one to one service. It is a quintessentially English town, a bit off the beaten track but well worth the visit.

This attractive church goes back to the 12th century. Built in the Clee Hills of Shropshire it has been added to over the years. The tower being built in 1720. It is in a tranquil setting and the Tugford Brook runs next to the church which once was the beating heartbeat of the village as it run a nearby mill.

Legend tells us that the Guildhall at the end of the High Street was built in two days. This seems astounding until you notice that it is largely timber framed. If all the timber was already on site and there was a sufficient workforce available erecting the frame of the building could well have taken only a couple of days. This was how such buildings would have been built from mediaeval times. Look out for two pairs of manacles attached to one of the posts in the front of the building.

Knowles Mill is the remains of an eighteenth-century water-powered grain mill, located in the Wyre Forest in Worcestershire, England. The mill has been owned by the National Trust since 1938. The mill and its surroundings feature extant machinery, as well as notable populations of adders and wood cranesbill. One of nine possible mills that historically worked on Dowles Brook, Knowles Mill was built in the eighteenth-century, and was later modified in the nineteenth-century. The surviving building is two storeys high and the site also preserves an overshot mill wheel made of iron and a great spur wheel, alongside other remnant machinery. The first record of a mill on the site dates to 1757 when it was listed as for sale in a local newspaper. However there is documentary evidence preceding 1757 that lists owners of the land that the mill was built on. These owners include Arthur Palmer, c.1661, Edward Wheeler, c.1693, Roger Hunt, c.1704, Antony Betts, c.1717, Edward Faulkner, c.1722 and Daniel Crun, c.1735. The first owner of the mill was William Crun, in 1757. It passed through a number of owners, including William and Mary Herbert, William Nicholls and Arthur Nott. The mill takes its name from the Knowles family who worked there from 1803 to the 1870s; earlier names included Coventry Mill and Upper Town Mill. The first member of the family to be listed as owner was James Knowles. The mill continued in use until 1891, when it became no longer financially viable. It was donated to the National Trust by Paul Cadbury in 1938, along with four acres of orchards. The property was visited by the historian James Lees-Milne during his work as a curator for the Trust. Source: Wikipedia

Bewdley was once an important inland port, connecting Shrewsbury with the Midlands and the seaports of Gloucester and Bristol. Originally the quays were shorter and had slipways between them. In time, as more landing space was needed, the quayside walls were joined into one continuous length. The larger boats, known as Severn Trows, carried local goods such as rope and charcoal, metal goods from Birmingham and Staffordshire pottery to the south. They returned laden with woollen cloth, wine, spirits, tobacco, sugar, spices, citrus fruit and dried fish to be sold in market towns across the West Midlands and Welsh borders. This civic space was developed when the Environment Agency built the Town's new flood defences, and incorporates work by artist Elizabeth-Jane Grose. On the lower quayside you can find flowing words relating to the river and the vessels that worked on it. On the upper quayside have a look for the 'cargo-plates' recording forty of the common and less common exports and imports to the Port of Bewdley. Source: Environment Agency