Explore More of The Wrekin

With over 100, 000 annual visitors, The Wrekin is undoubtedly one of Shropshire’s major tourist attractions. Evidence suggests around three quarters of those who come to climb the hill are local people but how many really know the wider forest landscape (the largest in the east of the county) surrounding the famous landmark? We’ve built a website to showcase the best of what the whole Wrekin Forest has to offer.

At its widest extent, the medieval forest of Mount Gilbert (which is what the Normans renamed The Wrekin) extended for over 120 square miles from the outskirts of Shrewsbury in the west to Shifnal in the east. The modern day forest is much smaller but, like its historic counterpart, encompasses much more than just woodland alone: this is also a landscape of arable fields, pasture, and wooded stream dingles onrushing towards the River Severn. For centuries, The Wrekin’s rich mineral resources also made it a centre of local industry, leaving a legacy of brownfield sites that now support a wide range of plants, animals and insects. The lives of some of the most iconic of these creatures — and where to see them — are explored in the ‘Wild Wrekin’ and ‘Explore’ sections of our site but there is really no better way to discover the rich natural heritage of the area than to get out and sample it first hand.

The Wrekin Forest comprises many landscape features beyond woodland alone (Gordon Dickins)

Close At Hand

At the foot of The Ercall, the most northerly of the five hills that comprise the Wrekin range, is the ancient Shropshire market town of Wellington, one of the county’s oldest settlements. Its fortunes have been connected inextricably to the hill since Medieval times, when it was known as Wellington-Under-The Wrekin. At just over a mile distant, it is an excellent place to begin an exploration of a forest the outskirts of which are only a brisk twenty minute walk from the railway station and the centre of town. Statistically, more than nine of every ten journeys to The Wrekin are made by car, creating unsustainable pressure on limited local parking facilities. Over the past decade, we’ve put together a series of booklets and mobile phone app walking trail routes designed to showcase the wild landscapes beyond the hill. They can be found in the Resources area of the site, and are all available for free download. We hope you’ll agree that it’s never been easier to explore more of the Wrekin Forest!

Wellington from the edge of Limekiln Wood (Gordon Dickins)