The Shropshire Hills boast some fantastic easy-to-visit museums, packed with exciting things to see and do that will keep both younger and older members of the family busy for hours.
Relics of the area’s early industry are lovingly looked after by volunteers at Daniel’s Mill, near Bridgnorth, and at old mining sites in the Stiperstones area. Here, Snailbeach Lead Mine is the most complete collection of mine building remains in England, while the The Bog Mine and its visitor centre in a conserved school is nearby.
The World Heritage Site of Ironbridge and its various museums, near Much Wenlock, are a day out in themselves, but the much smaller scale local museums reflecting many aspects of life are also fascinating. You’ll find these in Ludlow, Much Wenlock, and Bishop’s Castle, with its House on Crutches, Judge’s Lodging and railway museum.
The area’s distinctive agricultural heritage is celebrated at Acton Scott Historic Working Farm, where the kids can get up to close to animals from newly hatched chicks to squealing piglets to majestic shire horses. Traditional country crafts, like wheel-making and the smithy also make popular and educational watching.
The Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre, a few miles from Acton Scott, is a great place to learn about how the local landscape was forged and to see a life-size replica of the Shropshire Mammoth, whose remains survived from the last Ice Age till they were found in 1986.
The heritage of the Shropshire Hills spans many centuries and it's particularly spectacular when you take a step back and look specifically at the Industrial Heritage and consider how this has shaped the Shropshire Hills and communities we see today.