The best family-friendly hikes and walks around Highley

Nice place for a mid stop for tea and cake. Currently closed for a refit, (19 March 2024) hopefully open at Easter 2024.

A range of four-foot high posts carved with natural history subjects. They include a wast, a woodpecker and an acorn.

Built: 1949 Type: GWR 1500 Length: 33ft 0″ Weight: 58t 4cwt GWR 1501 is the sole survivor of its class, a GWR 1500 class 0-6-0PT shunting engine designed by Frederick Hawksworth. Ordered by GWR but out-shopped under BR, 1501 was completed at Swindon in 1949 and is now owned by the 1501 Pannier Tank Association. Unlike other pannier tanks on the SVR, 1501 has outside cylinders and a taper boiler. The locomotive also uses Walschaerts valve gear and has a maximum boiler pressure of 200psi. The locomotive spent its BR working life hauling rakes of empty coaches in and out of Paddington before the onward march of the modernisation programme led to it being sold in 1961 to the National Coal Board for use at Coventry Colliery, together with 1502 and 1509. Unfortunately people didn’t have as much disposable income in those days, and when it came to preservation after the locos were made redundant again in 1969, only 1501 was able to be preserved; it arrived on the SVR the following year. The long process of restoration began, and was completed in 1997. 1501 has served the SVR faithfully ever since, with a brief break in service for an overhaul, completed in 2012. A powerful locomotive despite its stature, 1501 has been nicknamed ‘the raging bull’ by SVR volunteers and has covered approximately 100,000 miles in preservation. It has been given an extension to its boiler ticket, which now ends on 8th January 2023.

Sculpture of miner standing in colliery lift cage under a clock tower in the former colliery. Sculpture created by David Howorth 1999.

Highley Church is the oldest building in the village. The earliest parts were built when the creation of the Domesday book was still in living memory, in the early 1100s. The Normans built most of the present chancel and nave . Although within 150 years there were complaints that the building was falling down, much of this early work does survive, especially some of the windows and doors. In the 1300’s a series of bad harvests and epidemics devastated much of England. Shropshire took several generations to recover and it was not until the next century that major work again took place on the church. The tower was put up, the walls were raised and finally, perhaps in the early 1500’s, a fine new wooden ceiling was installed. These events took place against the background of the Wars of the Roses; Highley belonged to the powerful Mortimer family and eventually became the property of the victorious Tudor kings. In spite of the violence of those times there must have been prosperous farmers and gentry in Highley who could spend money on the church. Over the following centuries the roof was altered, the interior was remodelled, a gallery was fitted and removed and the church has been repaired and restored. Every age has left its mark. The church can be reached by a walk of about 15 minutes, up the road from the Station (see the Guided Walk leaflets). It is usually open and visitors can explore its history in more detail, or simply enjoy its tranquillity.

Memorial for Highley Colliery at Severn Valley Country Park This is a winding wheel from the former Highley Colliery which closed in 1969. The site now forms part of the Severn Valley Country Park. The wheel has been placed here to celebrate the people who worked in the local mines.

The cutting is through beds of Highley Sandstone. They were deposited in the river channels on swampy deltas 310 million years ago. Their characteristic grey-green tinge indicates deposition in oxygen-poor conditions of a humid swamp. This is in contrast to the red Alveley Sandstone, seen earlier, formed in the oxygen-rich environment of a semi-arid desert. The pronounced 'bedding planes' running almost horizontally across the rock face, represent breaks in deposition. 'Cross-bedded' or 'current-bedded' layers are inclined at angles to each other. This cross cutting relationship is a result of changing directions in the river current that deposited the sediments, in the same way as changes in wind direction caused the dune-bedding seen in the Bridgnorth Sandstone

This sculpture forms part of the Highley Sculpture Trail, commissioned by the Highley Initiative. THE TWO BOOKENDS' represent duality - Top' and 'Bottom' ends of the village which joined to form Highley as it exists now; two mines (Alveley and Highley), two sides of a team game and two types of sandstone (red and grey) quarried in Medieval Highley. A chase cuts through the panel linking the two ends like a tunnel through a mine or a bridge between communities. THE PANEL OF CERAMIC TILES depicts designs done by children and young people of Highley and how the village 'seems' to them, a memory map in poems and drawings. The selected images were arranged into the composition by the Artist and faithfully reproduced into hand-made tiles by local ceramic artist Elaine Gregory. The smaller tiles are Elaine's own designs depicting the local flora which inspires her. 'HOW IT SEEMS, HOW IT SEAMS' is the song, or mantra, of the steam trains I heard in a dream. A mantra is a cyclical phrase which, when repeated in meditation, transcends the mind from the mundane to the philosophical and spiritual level. SEVEN RECTANGLES cut out from the ceramic panel allude to the 'Seven Sisters' a row of 400 year old trees located by the Old Vicarage and shaped into giant candelabras. Only four now remain. The poem 'The Old Tree' by Carly Reynolds featured on one of the tiles is a poignant reminder of loss. These rectangular voids are also represented in the seven pavement trail bronze plaques that meander up through the village- the 'seam'. THE STEEL GIRDERS represent failway tracks. ARTIST & DESIGNER SARANJIT BIRDI