Online tourist trail launched thanks to £50,000 grant support

An online personalised tourist trail linking parts of south west Shropshire, Powys and North Herefordshire has been given the go-ahead.

The Blue Forgotten Hills project crosses county and country borders, enabling visitors old and new to savour the rich history, outstanding scenery, produce and culture in the rarely visited hill country

The project is run by Enterprise South West Shropshire working with the newly-formed Marches Forward CIC in Bishop’s Castle, and will bring together smaller towns and communities with businesses, tourist attractions and countryside management organisations to promote the area as a whole.

The project will use an array of social media, supported by an information and image-rich website and tourist trail tool for people planning their days out.

Shropshire Council has given £50,000 in support funding towards the project.

Dave Crane, director at ESWS, is in charge of the Blue Forgotten Hills, named with a nod to A.E.Housman’s famous poem A Shropshire Lad, where he refers to the Blue Remembered Hills.

The title reflects the fact that a remarkable area of rich countryside can be so close to major regions, but so far from peoples’ minds.

Dave Crane said: Traditional tourism works at its best linking visitors with the big attractions, such as Carding Mill Valley or Stokesay Castle, which are fantastic sites to explore, but during the peak of the three Lockdowns, there were so many people there and there is so much more out there to explore, just minutes away.

The project covers an area measuring approximately 20 miles in all directions, taking in much of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Powys Outstanding Registered Historic Landscape.

With some 12 castles and four breweries, standing stones, dark skies viewpoints and some fantastic pubs and walks, it has a lot to offer everyone.

Dave Crane said: We want to gather as much information as possible about the area to encourage people to visit , supporting that with the online tourist trail tool, allowing people to follow in the footsteps of our field researchers.

We are also keen to engage visitors from a younger age group and will be taking full advantage of social media, such as Instagram and TikTok.

The tourist trail tool will allow high levels of personalisation, both in terms of a visitor’s interests and needs, creating a bespoke plan for their visit  with a route via an online map.

It will show the route between recommended sites, typical times spent at each and places to eat along the way.

Each stop on the trail has been tested and approved by field researchers.