The timeless beauty of Shropshire’s canals

Shropshire is a strange county, little known by those beyond its border, and perhaps that’s part of its appeal. It not only has no coastline, but no city officially either. Phone cover is shaky and transport links sparse (at some times in the day, only one bus every two hours will leave my market town, and they cease abruptly around 6 p.m.).

But what it does have are medieval towns, lush green landscapes, and enormous numbers of farm animals – cows, sheep, and horses (for someone coming, as I do, from relatively arable East Anglia, this has a certain H.E. Bates charm to it). The town I’ve moved to, built on a canal, has a livestock auction house on the outskirts, the lowing of cows-for-sale emanating through the carpark outside. If the smell of ordure doesn’t deter the customers, there’s a café attached, selling cooked breakfasts and, appropriately enough, roast beef.