Photo © HOME AT FIRST

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SHROPSHIRE & CHESHIRE

        This gentle, sleepy, English countryside is keeper of a great secret. Here along the Welsh border where the great River Severn is scarcely more than a good sized stream, the rich broad fields of flat English farms adjoin rolling hills streaked with minor coal veins.
        With local water and coal power available, a nearby outlet to the sea, and agricultural goods being produced in abundance, Cheshire and Shropshire had the right stuff to be among the first

English catalysts for the Industrial Revolution.

Indeed, Ironbridge, Shropshire, is a preserved village

monument to those times, as are the canals and railways which crisscross the region. But the Industrial Revolution did not leave deep scars here, as it in Birmingham, Manchester, and elsewhere in the Midlands.

Ironbridge, near Telford, Shropshire, is
recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
This sleepy village witnessed some of the earliest
expressions of the Industrial Revolution. The
village remains much as it was when the world's
first cast iron bridge was erected here in 1779.

 

IRONBRIDGE, SHROPSHIRE
Photo courtesy britainonview, Pawel Libera.
 

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        Today, Cheshire and Shropshire remain largely a rural backwater — pretty, agricultural, and within day-trip reach of Shakespeare's Cotswolds to the south, the mountains and castles of Wales a few miles to the west, and one of England's greatest medieval towns, Chester, to the north.

THE 17TH CENTURY TUDOR HOUSE,
MARKET DRAYTON, SHROPSHIRE.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

LOCATE SHROPSHIRE & CHESHIRE ON HOME AT FIRST'S MAP OF ENGLAND & WALES

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        HOME AT FIRST’s accommodations on the Cheshire/Shropshire border, on the grounds of a Cistercian abbey dating from 1133, offer a peaceful and stylish retreat, and serve as a great base for touring throughout western England and large portions of Wales. The 1,100-acre abbey estate offers the elegant simplicity of English country life in the midst of rural splendor.
 

SEVERAL COTTAGE APARTMENTS ARE LOCATED
ON THIS JACOBEAN ABBEY ESTATE.

 

Photos © HOME AT FIRST
 

          HOME AT FIRST’s Shropshire/Cheshire lodgings are well equipped with all the comforts of home, and are decorated tastefully with quality furnishings. Each has private parking and outdoor garden. These cottages in the quiet countryside are perfectly located as bases for day trips throughout the Cheshire, Shropshire, and North Wales.

LIVING ROOM IN A COTTAGE
ON THE ABBEY ESTATE