The best hotels in Shropshire 2023

Rural, radiant, and no longer ignored as a liminal vagueness between England and Wales. The world has woken up to Shropshire, and the dramatic landscapes and astonishing history that make it a dreamy destination to escape the everyday.

Explore castles and fortifications, wild open spaces on the top of Long Mynd, historic villages and market towns. Visit Ironbridge Gorge, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and home the world’s oldest working cast-iron bridge, or ramble through the Shropshire hills, enjoying the V-shaped valleys and countryside as you go. Shropshire is home to the best-preserved steam train network in Europe, the Severn Valley Railway, where you can have a go at driving your own passenger train.

And Shropshire is answering – with hotels to impress the even most exacting of travellers, serving food that capitalises on the region’s rich agricultural heritage. As someone who’s explored the length and breadth of these borderlands, here’s my pick of Shropshire hotels with a special something.

Neighbourhood: Bishop’s Castle

Bishop’s Castle has only stumpy remains of its eponymous stronghold, but the arty market town is home to two breweries, including Britain’s oldest working one, the Three Tuns. Sample the wares in three bars at the unpretentiously elegant Castle Hotel, built from ruins on the castle site in 1719. The restaurant menu changes daily, making hearty use of produce from local suppliers. Up the Georgian staircases are thirteen bedrooms, furnished in harmony with the big windows and quirky spaces of this lovely old coaching inn.