Shrewsbury deserves to rival York and Oxford, praises The Telegraph

"The historic market town, set within a loop of the River Severn, first made its money from the wool industry in Tudor times. The half-timbered shopfronts of Wyle Cop, said to be the street with the longest uninterrupted row of independent shops in the country, are again alive with home-grown businesses from fashion boutique Oberon to wine merchants Tanners, established 1842 and still run by the same local family.

The Left for Dead vinyl and bookshop has an eclectic window display, combining a Kate Bush biography with a book entitled Satanic Feminism. What’s more, while York, Oxford and Chester (one hour north across the Cheshire border) are already on most people’s radars, Shrewsbury is playing its rising-star trump card as a better-value staycation.

The town will soon embrace its annual DarwIN Shrewsbury Festival, which celebrates the February 12 birthday of its most famous son. His 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, forms the basis of our understanding of evolution and festival events include talks, walks and a first visit to refurbished rooms at The Mount aka Darwin House. The former family home and garden is due to re-open as a visitor attraction in the next few years.

Away from the Darwin trail, there are fine Georgian squares, expansive green spaces at The Quarry, and higgledy-piggledy medieval passageways (known as “shuts”), featuring unusual names like Gullet Passage and Grope Lane, home to cafes, galleries and restaurants. The town also boasts plenty of dark history — from weekly ghost tours to Pride Hill, where the Welsh prince, Llewelyn the Last, was hung, drawn and quartered for treason after a trial at Shrewsbury’s Norman Castle."

Click here to read the full piece from The Telegraph.