Shropshire 3 - The high and low town and a learning tower of nearly Pisa

---

Suzy the motorhome is excited - she is off on the road again. The first trip of the season. This time last year she was just a twinkle in our eyes but now she is part of the family and we do love her. Suzy has 130 horses beneath her bonnet although Sion cannot work out how they get under the bonnet as he cannot find them even if he looks very hard. Suzy is behaving a little like the horses at a horse race waiting for the race to begin. And tomorrow we are off. Bridgnorth and Ludlow here we come. But guess what – just as we are due to go I get the mother of all colds. I have been brewing something for a week or so and yesterday out in the cold at a funeral the sneezing, coughing and general feeling of being unwell began. I didnt go to work today nor to swimming so I must be ill as I don’t do ill. Hopefully by tomorrow, a few Lemsips and hot blackcurrant drinks I will feel better. Postscript to that one - I didnt get any better. In fact the cold lingered on for such a long time hampered by bitterly cold weather. 2 degrees in Suzy last night without the heating on. And our waste water bucket was iced over two mornings running.

The weather has turned nasty. . After the first sighting of Spring on Monday the rain had returned and has brought with it a chillness to the air. We are having rain tomorrow with a sprinkling of sleet and possibly even snow. Good job Sion and Ba Ba have woolly jackets of their own to keep them warm and Drag just has to breath fire. Our other little friend Spike has woken from his hibernations. He like other hedgehogs slept through most of last summer and didn’t join us on our travels.This year he got talking to the gang and decided that they must have had fun and wants to join them. He likes the sound of this motorhoming lark.

We chose Bridgnorth for our first trip out as its not too far to drive and would give us the ideal opportunity to test the van out again properly without being too far from home. We needed to do a shakedown and work out what we needed to replenish from last year. The sites we have chosen are the 5* Morris caravan parks just outside of both towns and set in the countryside. Both are a little over a mile or so they say into town and look to be pleasant walks. Scarves, coats and gloves will be needed though. The site at Bridgnorth is a slightly older whilst the Ludlow site is brand spanking new. I imagine will not have settled into its landscape yet. We pay around £22 a night with the Caravan Club Discount. Both are owned by the Morris family who ran a business manufacturing and selling lubricants. I am looking forward to trying the 5* toilet block. What does a 5* shower look like? I am intrigued. We havent used the shower in the van for some time and need to add a touch much silicon around the edges before we use it this year. And of course we still wait for news on our replacement locker door. Have Swift agreed to change it? Who knows? Perhaps we all should have joined the guy last week who marched up and down the forecourt with a banner stating that the company who sold him his motorhome was rubbish at what they do.

Anyway I digress. We set out just after lunchtime and travelled through a number of pretty little Shropshire villages. The scenery is rolling with hills, pretty stone cottages and rivers running through the towns. We arrived at the campsite and were warmly welcomed by a really helpful receptionist. The park is set on an old airforce camp within 80 acres of parkland. The reception office is clean,tidy and well stocked. We picked up a tv cable just in case Kathrein wouldn’t work and a £5 WFI credit which we could use at both sites. We checked on buses as the walk back to town seemed too far. We were further out than the 1 mile advertised on the campsite blurb. and driving up we realised we may be able to walk down to the town but didnt relish the uphill trek back to the campsite. There are buses but not on a Sunday so it’s a walk tomorrow for the train. Apparently it takes about 45 mins downhill to the town to the Severn Valley Railway. . Recommended are the perry and the pork and stilton pies for sale at the Railway station. Mmmmm sounds good for dinner.

The toilet blocks looked clean and warm with plenty of washbasins, toilets and showers. Round the back was a large lake full of ducks, waterlilies and with banks planted with daffodils and Iris. Peacocks strutted their stuff. Sion had never seen such big fat birds and wondered if they would fit in our oven as they were bigger than the chickens he was used to. I told him they were decorative and not for Sunday lunch. He also fancied the feathers from the males tail. The site is divided up into a number of hard standings, grass pitches, adult only grass pitches and adult only hard standing. Most visitors today seemed to be tuggers rather than motorhomers. Dinner is cooking Chicken Stew with potatoes and carrots. It smells rather good. There is something nice about being on the road again . Kathrein misbehaved again, going up finding the satellites but refused to park up again. A quick e-mail sent to the company who fitted her as she is close to end of her years guarantee.

Sunday and its a walk down to the town. Boy was it cold and it seemed to take an age to get to the town. Our helpful receptionist had given us a map showing a shortcut down the side of Aldi. Even with this it felt a long way. Bridgenorth is situated on the Severn Valley with the river splitting the town. The Low Town is naturally at the bottom of the hill on the waters edge and the High Town up on the cliff. A funicular railway runs from the Lower Town to the Upper Town. We wanted a go on it but it was closed in the morning when we first arrived and by the afternoon we were too cold to bother. The other option of getting from the lower town to the upper was by climbing one of the many steps that were cut into the hillside. All had lovely names most of which I have forgotten. It's that age thing again.

Bridgnorth is a fairly small town with the main attraction a bit of a castle mostly blown up by Cromwells forces and the Severn Valley Railway. On the way we crossed over the river and passed a tall clock tower type of building. This looked like a cross between an Italian electricity substation and a clocktower from Riquewihr. There were some interesting and lovely buildings lining the River Severn. We walked up to the Upper Town passed an interesting church which wasn’t open and up what seemed like hundreds of steps. It might have been nice in sunny weather but today it felt like the Arctic in Bridgnorth. We finally arrived at the top having circuited the castle or at least what was left of it. One leaning tower than apparently leans further over than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The castle too was closed so we had to make do with viewing it through the fencing .

In the middle of the High Town was a medieval gateway into the town and an old market hall. The market hall must have been similar to the one that used to stand in Wrexham. Wrexhams loss was that it was demolished to make way for the widening of the street. Bridgenorth kept theirs and what an asset to the town it was. None of the shops open so nothing much to see and the only option left to us in the cold was to go home in a most welcoming taxi.

Next trip on the Railway . Looking forward to that. It should be fun with all that nostalgia .

---

Photos

Bridgnorth
Market Hall

Bridgnorth
Medieval Gate

Bridgnorth
Those steps

The gang
supporting our local team