Shrewsbury to Newtown – Route 81 – Escaping out of the country!

Cycling from Shrewsbury to Newtown as we escape pout of the country. We criss cross the River Severn as we pass through Montford Bridge, Shrawardine, Crew green and Welshpool before hitting the Montgomery Canal to complete the journey to Newtown.

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I am jetting off on an international business trip yes it’s true in this video we’re going to cross an international border as I make my way from Shrewsbury shwy down Route 81 of the national cycle network over the border into walesy through welshpool and on to New [Music] Town this 41 mile ride takes advantage of shrew cycle paths before heading out into the lovely quiet Lanes of Shropshire and crossing the river 7 on an old stretch of Railway we Travers the Welsh border on a rather sizable Hill enjoying the panaramic views before we make our descent into the historic town of welshpool from here we’re able to use the Montgomery Canal to make our way to a final destination of New Town in my last video on Route 81 I cycle from Birmingham to Shrewsbury so I’ve caught the train again to Shrewsbury to start from the point where we end in that video at the Port Hill suspension bridge this is located in Quarry Park in the center of Shrewsbury the bridge was built in 1922 to replace a ferry surface that used to operate here and back in 2012 while the bridge was being refurbished a ferry surface once again operated from this pier here that we see over to the boat house on the opposite side of the river fortunately today I am able to cross the bridge and although this is part of Route 81 of the national cycle Network cyclists are asks to Dismount as they cross the bridge and by the looks of how busy is this makes perfect sense a good proportion of our journey through shbr is along traffic free cycle paths but after crossing the port Hill suspension bridge we need to make our way up Woodfield Avenue this residential street before we take a ride onto Shelton Road and the safety again of a traffic free cycle path shrewbury actually has quite a good network of both traffic free and onroad cycle paths when we get to the area of Shelton unfortunately the cycle path ends and we need to join the Busy B 4380 this part of the road used to be part of the A5 and in the early 1800s Thomas Telford used it to form part of his hollyhead Road Project the construction of which started in 1815 after an act of parliament decided that we needed a better Road running from London to hollyhead where feries left to Dublin Island Thomas Telford designed and built many toll houses along the Route designed to be able to collect the funds for the upkeep of the road this particular bent used to have a tll house on it but in the 1970s when the road was widened unfortunately the toll house had to be removed fortunately though it was decided that the toll house had historic value and so instead of being bulldozed it was taken apart piece by piece and rebuilt at Bliss Hill Museum in Telford it still stands there to this day so feel free to take a visit to Bliss Hill just off Route 55 of the national cycle Network in midley tford this section of the route between Shelton and Montford Bridge as it passes through the village of bton is probably the worst part of this journey most of the stretch is a 60 MPH limit and there are a fair few cars on it but it only last for a couple of miles before we make our way to Montford bridge and cross over the river 7 for the second time in this journey Montford Bridge was finished in 1792 and was designed by again that man Thomas Telford the bridge is constructed from Red sandstone and this was obtained from nesscliffe Hill Just 4 miles away just after crossing the bridge we take a left to continue our journey towards welshpool which we’re told is 23 Mi away and from here we cross over the modern A5 built in the 1990s to replace the stretch of road that we’ve just come down the route between Montford bridge and welshpool is a very different character to the start of the route we make our way along very quiet Lanes making our way through small villages and crossing the Welsh border twice the first Village that we pass through is Montford not to be confused with Montford bridge and as we come into the village we pass the Church of St Chads now this is interesting because in the graveyard here you can find the graves of Susanna and Robert Darwin the parents have undoubtedly the most famous person to be born in Shrewsbury Charles Darwin from Montwood we continue on these quiet rural Lanes seemingly left behind in time as we make our way to the next Village of scharine as we come into shadine we find the remains of shadine Castle this Castle was built by the Normans following their invasion of England in 1066 it was built here to defend an important river crossing over the River 7 and during its time it served not only as an important defensive point to defend against the Welsh but also a gathering point for forces going into Wales from England well England against Wes a that needs no further ingredient the castle was finally destroyed in 1645 while it was held by the royalists in the English Civil War it held out for 5 days before surrender and after that the Parliamentary forces destroyed the castle and Stone from the castle was taken to help rebuild the war walls of nearby Shrewsbury as we continue on through the village of shadine we pass some beautiful thatched buildings and at the bottom of the village we come to a very interestingly named Cottage and I’m going to take a wild guess that this is the crossing point that schine castle was built to defend however today there is no Ferry here so we need to carry on to find a bridge over the seven Route 81 carries on to the Village of wil cut Marsh where we take a left which is clearly signposted and carry on our journey up this quiet Ral Lane until we make it to NES Cliff training camp NES Cliff training area was originally an ammunition dump during World War II the area was chosen due to its Ral location making it less susceptible to Air Raids the area also lay on the route of the old shopshire and montgomer Railway also known as the line the line ran from Abby forgate in Shrewsbury over to Lanny menik across the Welsh border the line first opened in 1866 but was never particularly successful with the line suffering multiple closures and reopenings during its life it was revived to serve the ammunition Depo here during World War II but eventually closed down completely in 1960 and much of the track and the infrastructure was ripped up following World War II the ammunition Depo here also became Surplus to requirements and was closed down and the sight turned into this training area that we see today one Oddity about the NES Cliff training area is that the M mod spell NES cliff without an e whereas the nearby Village of nesscliffe is spelled with an e on the end I’m not quite sure why this is and if anybody knows please do let me know in the comments in the village of pentre we take a left turn again very well signposted and carry on our journey towards the village of melvy we’re cycling these Lanes at the time of year when the fields are getting fertilized with let’s say natural fertilizer so as you can see some parts of the lane on my way to melv were covered in some of this natural fertilizer and I would definitely advise slowing down as you pass through these sections which are seemingly covered in mud just to make sure none of this natural fertilizer does flick up off the wheels on to you Route 81 between Montford bridge and welshpool does follow a few twists and turns along the way it’s always on these quiet lanes and it is generally well sign posted but I would recommend that you do download the route either to your cycle computer or have it on your phone so you do know where you’re going just in case you miss one of those little blue signs I’ve got the route downloaded onto my Garmin it is an older model but it does the job and makes navigation a lot easier hav it there in front of me and with its guidance we’ve made our way safely to the next Village on our route the village of Melville I’ll leave a link to the route in the description of this video so if you want to download it and ride this yourself you can for Mel we’re going to pick up a disuse rail line to make our way across the river 7 and into Wales and although it might not be immediately apparent this is where we actually join the Old Railway line and it’s not that track immediately in front of us it’s actually the road that bends around to the right that is is the old rail line there’s not a lot of Clues around here that this was an old rail line but the line used to follow the row of hedging in the middle of the shot here as it came down to this point and curved round to the right before it crossed the river 7 this is where we are now just outside Melville and you can clearly see the curve on the road as it crosses the river 7 and goes into the village of Crew green and this is all an old section of Railway so we’re going to carry on along Route 81 and this road that follows the of the Old Railway and head into Wales I mentioned earlier the old rail line that ran through the NES Cliff training area the shop montgomry line that ran from shrewbury to Lanny menik and this route that we on now was part of that Railway system it was actually a small Branch line that ran from kinnell through Melville across the river and crigan and it was built to move Stone from the quar at kragan back to Shrewsbury this Branch line was opened in 1871 a few years after the original line between Shrewsbury and Lanny manic was opened it suffered the same fate as the main line open and closing a few times over the years and eventually closing for good in 1960 the bridge over the river 7 is one of the most substantial parts of the Railway to survive although this isn’t the original bridge when the railway was built it was built on a budget and this was originally what was described as a very rickety wooden Viaduct and In 1902 the viu collapsed into the river it was rebuilt again in 1912 using a mish mash of Parts again on a budget and by 1920 the bridge had been declared unsafe and was put out of use the ministry of Defense repaired the bridge during World War II so it could be used in the war effort however again in 1947 the bridge had to be rebuilt to what we see today it closed to train traffic in 1960 and was opened as a road bridge in 1962 at this point the border of England and Wales is in the center of the bridge so welcome to Wales the road continues along the Old Railway line until we get to Crew green where the Road and Route 81 turns to the left and this disused rail line carries on straight ahead I had a quick look down this track to see if I could see anything that was left of the Railway and as you can see some of the old gate posts here are made of Old Railway sleepers and you can see somewhat of an embankment as the track continues into this Farm but really that’s about it you probably wouldn’t know there was a railway here unless you were told from here Route 81 takes us through Crew green as we take a right onto the busy b43 93 this is a busy stretch of road but we’re only on it for a short while before we turn left and head into the bidden Hills the route so far from Shrewsberry has been pretty flat with it at worst being described as undulating but here is where we hit the first of two climbs in this ride the first one being substantially smaller than the second with the second Hill on this route maxing out at 364 M that’s nearly 12200 ft this first Hill tops out at 211 M that’s just under 700 ft but as we’re coming up from the river valley it is quite a climb as the road zigzags up the side of the briten hills the hard work of cycling up the hill is rewarded with some fantastic views across the river 7 Valley and the mountains of snowdonia in the distance from here we also get a view of Admiral Rodney’s pillar this was built in 1782 to commemorate the naval victories of admir Rodney over the French with these Naval victories taking place in the Caribbean during the American war of independence this may seem a strange place to have a commemorative Pillar To The Man Who led the fleet but it’s here because Oak was shipped from here down the river 7 to Bristol where it was used to build admir Rodney’s fet and with the history lesson over it’s time to carry on up this hill as we get towards the top of this first climb after only cycling through Wales for a few miles we actually crossed the border again back into England [Applause] [Music] there is a small descent to enjoy before we hit the biggest hill of this climb but I would exercise some caution as you come down this descent it is quite twisty and imparts the surface is not great the route brings us to the busy a458 this is the main road between Shrewsbury and welshpool is an extremely busy road but fortunately we don’t have to ride on it is all we’re doing is crossing over it but do use some caution as as I said this is a very busy road with fast moving traffic but once we’ve crossed over to this road we’re back on the quiet ryal lanes that we’ve been used to we don’t have to worry too much about traffic on these lanes because you rely see a car after crossing the Shrewsbury to welshpool road we then cross over the Shrewsberry to welshpool railway construction of this section of lime was completed in 1861 and from welshpool the railway runs onto new town and then munle where it splits up and heads towards abaris withth and pelli in the [Applause] north not long after crossing the railway we take a left and begin our climb or what is known as Long Mountain interestingly a mountain in the UK is classed as land that rises above 2,000 ft or about 610 m Long Mountain Rises to 1,339 Ft or 408 M so this is well under the threshold for what is usually defined as a mountain so I’d be interested to know why this is called Long Mountain if you know do let me know in the comments the first section of this climb is quite Steep and the surfacing Parts is definitely not great with my legs beginning to burn I met a cyclist coming the other way who told me it was all pill ahead and when I asked him how far he said it’s quite away I far from the top I definitely would have swap for his ebike at this point as we get closer to the top of the hill it does flatten out a little bit I think for even the most seasoned cyclists this is a pretty tough climb as we make our way to over 12200 ft The Climb just seem to go on and on and when you think that you’re reaching the top you would turn a corner and see that there was more uphill to go we do eventually reach the summit of this hill or mountain and it is a very long flat Summit not surprisingly as it is called Long Mountain is at the top of this hill that we pass back into Wales the views from the top are pretty spectacular as we can look back into England and at the South Shropshire Hills including the cyer stones in the distance from the summit the road gently starts to go downhill so we can enjoy a rest of the legs but it was at this point I could see that the road started to rise again in front of me and I could hear my legs talking no no no no no wait wait wait wait wait fortunately Route 81 is kind to us here and we don’t carry on up this Ascent we take a right turn and head down Long Mountain towards welshpool which is just a few miles away now most of which are downhill after a gentle downhill start to this descent it does begin to get extremely steep in places with a road surface that is less than ideal so I would again recommend a lot of caution coming down this this descent but it was definitely nice to rest the legs and let gravity do some of the work on the way down we get to see glimpses of welshpool as we head towards this mid whales town as you can see the surface of this road is pretty terrible in places it actually gets so bad in parts that I’m not sure it really deserves a name Road it definitely descends into more of a track than an actual Road certainly not ideal conditions for my road bike but by exercising a little bit of caution I am able to get down here with no issues we eventually come out on the B 4388 which we follow for a very short while before turning right and heading into welshpool itself to make it into Welsh pool we once again have to cross over the river 7 our fourth crossing of the river this journey and not the last I couldn’t find much information about this bridge or this Weir that you can see to the north of the bridge the bridge appears to be of modern construction and is all I can find out about it is that it is apparently the 39th crossing of the river 7 from its source Route 81 carries on into the center of welshpool taking a bridge over the very busy a48 83 road which runs from welshpool to New Town the top of the bridge we can see the original welshpool train station on the left which now looks like it’s serving the main road the road was built in 1992 and it was a bypass for the town of welshpool and in order to facilitate the road the railway was shifted towards the South making the original station redundant and a new station with just one platform in the center was built the old station is now a number of shops and a cafe and it’s actually where I made a stop to have some lunch before carrying on this journey down Route 81 towards New Town I had a very tasty panini from here I can definitely recommend the cafe but it does seem a shame that this beautiful building is no longer serving its original purpose for a carry on the journey if you enjoying this video please do help to keep the channel on track by subscribing to the channel it really makes a big difference and helps me to continue making content like this apologies here as I forgot to readjust my GoPro after lunch but from the old train station it’s a short ride at welshpool High Street until we reach Montgomery canal and we’re going to be following this canal all the way from welshpool to New Town a distance of around 15 mil which is almost entirely traffic free the route heads out to the outskirts of welshpool and you quickly feel like you’re out in the countryside even though we are are still on the edge of Welsh bu here I’ve never ridden this section of Route 81 before and I was a little bit concerned about the surface as you can see I’m on my road bike as the majority of the journey was on roads and this made much better sense than bringing my mountain bike I suppose ideally what I need is a gravel bike definitely something I’m going to be looking into this year the surface of the path although it’s gravel was actually perfectly acceptable to ride on my road bike so even though a road bike is definitely not the optimal tool for this job it’s definitely a perfectly acceptable way to make your way down this section of toe path a couple of miles outside welshpool we come to a point where the canal has been realigned this was done in 1995 to allow a new road bridge to be built over the canal because of the realignment it actually left this section of the canal to my left separate from the actual Network and it now forms part of the White House Nature Reserve despite this being a modern road bridge above us carrying the a458 it’s pretty tight under here so do take it slow and watch out for people coming around this pretty tight corner here and you can also see at this point that the toe path is quite narrow and very close to the edge of the canal this is often the case along this route towards new town so some caution and common courtesy is needed as you make you way down this section especially when passing pedestrians and other cyclists another mile or so along the canal we come towards the bell and locks this is a really pretty place to stop for a picnic and it also has a great information board telling you a bit more about the canal the board tells us that much of the land around here belonged to the Earl of pis who was a major shareholder in the Montgomery Canal he lived in pis Castle just on the edge of Welsh pool the Paris family were well-known entrepreneurs and they embraced the Industrial Revolution they saw the benefits that the montgomer canal could bring to the area so they were big supporters of it and hence became shareholders in it at Bridge 123 I came across this fantastic bench which nicely Maps out the route of the Montgomery Canal the canal ran from Frankton Junction where it joined the clang Goan Canal it ran from here into Wales where it passed Lan menic welshpool and finally into new town and this red dot on the bench shows us where we are now the canal was constructed in three stages the first stage being built by the elmir canal company and they built the section of the canal from clang Galan Junction to just south of Lan menic in Wales this was completed by the mid 1790s the next section to be completed was done by the Montgomery Shire Canal company which completed the canal down to G Mill 6 miles from New Town they then ran out of money and were able to go no further and it wasn’t until 1815 when an act of parliament meant that it was financed to complete the final section to New Town which was completed in 1819 just outside the town of Buu and I apologize of my Welsh pronunciation there cannot speak the Welsh language is a constant source of embarrassment to me we come across the Buu Aqueduct which was built between 1794 and 1797 and engineered by John and Thomas dadford it takes the canal over the river Rue just south of the town of Buu again apologies for my Welsh pronunciation I know that is probably not correct from here you can head Upstream to the town of baru where there is a shop and a te- room if you need to stop for some refreshment but as I stop for lunch at welshpool I’m all good so I’m going to carry on the rest of the way to New Town which is 8 mil away now not too much further down the canal we come into the village of re where the canal seems to come to an abrupt end now this obviously wasn’t like this when the Canan was built I would assume there was some of a humped back bridge here that’s either collapsed or been removed since the canal fell out of use so here we need to leave the canal to cross over the road to enable us to carry on our journey down the Montgomery Canal which does happily continue at the other side of the road and it was here I noticed this fantastic little sign advising canoers that they need to take their boat out the water to carry on their Journey the majority of the freight carried on this canal was local Limestone and coal which was burned Often by the side of the canal to create quick lime which was used in a fertilizer in the many farms that surround this canal in the rural 7 Valley here with the development of modern fertilizers and the Advent of the railways the canal really struggled from about 1870 but it did manage to keep going until 1936 when a breach in the canal near the aqueduct over the River Perry resulted in the closure of the canal which was confirmed by an act of parliament in 1944 a plan was put forward in the 1960s to use some of the canal around welshpool to turn into a bypass this was strongly opposed by locals and it led to the canal being not only preserved but actually restored with support from The Prince of Wales committee 11 mil from welshpool to rafil where we just crossed the road was restored to working order from rafale down to New Town the canal is not in such good condition some parts do look like you could definitely get a narrow booat down with some only really possible to take a canoe down and some sections not passable at all especially as we get close to New Town here where we cross the a483 the canal actually disappears entirely here’s the original road with the original Bridge with the canal going underneath but since the canal closed the road has been redeveloped and widened with no allowances made for the canal to carry on in the future under or over this road we do have to follow the road for a short while past the Nag’s Head Pub to make our way onto the toe path on the other side you can see here that if they do want to restore the canal to full working order down to New Town that this would be a major barrier as the canal literally just ends with the road going over the top although I believe the biggest barrier to full restoration of the Montgomery Canal would be at the other end as the section in welshpool currently does not join to the other section that has been restored closer to the clangin canal you can see the toe path here does get pretty narrow but it’s still a decent surface and I’m still riding down it with a caution on my road bike no problem at all you can also see the canal is definitely not in as good condition as we saw further up it’s pretty narrow and there’s a lot of reads in it you really would struggle to get a large boat down there and you’d probably even struggle just to get a canoe down it just over a mile from where we crossed the 8483 we need to cross it again as you can see again no provision has been made for the canal to run under or over this new section of road but at least this is a straightforward Crossing and we don’t need to carry on down the road at all we carry on down this Pleasant section of canal for about another half a mile before yet again we need to cross over the a483 road this Crossing is a bit of a strange one because the little blue sign tells us to go right here onto the busy road but indeed you can actually just go straight across and across the grass on the other side and get back onto the toe path there is a route back onto the toe path if you go right but it does mean riding down this road for a few hundred yards which I’d preferably not do to be honest and you can see by the grass here that I’m not the only one to do this it looks like a regular path that people take as it makes much more sense and here you are back onto this lovely tarmac path which takes us straight onto the paath again and here as well you can see there is no provision for the canal to go under or over the road here if they were to want to reinstate this section the canal runs alongside the road for quite a while at this point and it brings us to Brindo in Warf here we need to go under the bridge and then double back back on ourselves to carry on on the toe path as it swaps sides we travel down the opposite side of the canal sandwiched in between the canal and the main road for just a short way before we go over the canal again and back to the original side brinder and Warf was originally a coal Warf supplying coal to the surrounding towns and this Warehouse building here was built in the late 1800s when corrugated iron was the new fangled material that everyone wanted to build out of the warf’s SAT between the canal and the river 7 which runs alongside the canal for quite some time now we’re just 4 miles from New Town now as we carry on down the canal as it sandwiched between the busy Main Road and the river 7 and continuing down the canal we come to bridge 147 and there’s an interesting bridge over the river 7 here that it’s worth just jumping off the canal to take a look at this is the bindin bridge which holds the illustrious Tire of the second Iron Bridge built in the county of Montgomery built in 1852 it was built to replace a wooden bridge here that was Swept Away in a flood not far from the bridge the canal heads under the busy a483 in a modern tunnel and we take a bit of a longer Journey round to make our way under the main road as well we pass under the bridge that takes the main road over the river 7 this is considered to be the 33rd bridge that crosses over the river 7 from its source and it was built in 19 1975 we have to double back on ourselves just a little bit as we make our way back to the canal from here we’re on the home straight it’s just under 3 miles to New Town now passing by another wonderfully preserved bridge and lock I really thought I was on the home straight here what was going to stop me making my way to New Town I think my robot bike had done pretty well to get to this point riding along the gravel but unfortunately just past this point I did suffer a puncher about 2 miles out of New Town fortunately I came prepared and I did have the gear to be able to change the in tube on the move I think this is a lesson that it is important to take spares with you when you are out especially on a longdistance ride this was an inconvenience but it was not a ride ending with the inner tube changed all that remained to do was pump up the tire with the small hand pump that I keep in my saddle bag a bit of a workout but at least I got to carry on my ride as I got closer to New Town the condition of the canal got worse until this point where it just became a bit of a marshy ditch just over a mile from New Town the toe path turned into this wonderful tarmac path the canal is to the right in between the trees but there really isn’t much left of it here the surface continues like this right into new town as we now follow the river 7 towards the center of the town at this point I was meant to cross the river for the fifth and final time this journey but I missed the signs that Tomy to double back and cross over this bridge that I’m about to go under now and I wasn’t paying attention to my navigation so instead of crossing the river here and carrying on along the traffic free route along the other side of the river 7 I took a small detour down the roads and cross the river here to my final destination a car park in the center of New Town Where Mrs cycling Nate was waiting to give me a lift home from here Route 81 carries on through candid nose and rer all the way to Abu iswith on the coast and I’m planning at some point to ride those routes and get videos done of it I’ll then have videos covering the entire route of 81 as it leaves Birmingham carries on through Shropshire heads into Wales and finishes at the coast to abis with but for today I’m done this is the end of my ride today I hope you’ve enjoyed it I have I particularly enjoyed the 15 miles from welshpool to New Town along that wonderful canal toe path if you’ve enjoyed the video please do more up on the channel and subscribe it really makes a massive difference and helps me to continue making these videos in the future you can also buy me a beer via the link in the description and I’ll also leave a link in the description to buy one of my cycling n mugs thank you very much for watching it really is appreciated I hope you’ve enjoyed the video and happy cycling [Music]