Visitors from Birmingham are travelling in record numbers to a newly renovated woodland in Shropshire, where a network of fairy trails, a restored Victorian sawmill and simple treehouse dens have turned a quiet nature reserve into one of the region's most talked-about family destinations.
The woodland, which sits just a mile from the Staffordshire/Shropshire border on the B4368, has been managed by a local conservation charity since 2018. A recent 12-month project, funded by a £45,000 lottery grant, added new surfaced paths, a coffee hut and an imaginative play trail carved from fallen timber.
Three routes, one magical adventure
Upon arrival at the simple wooden gate, each family receives a free trail card listing 15 fairy doors hidden along the three colour-coded routes. The red route is a flat, pushchair-friendly 1.2-mile loop that takes around 45 minutes, passing a rope swing and a cluster of tiny painted houses at the base of an ancient oak. The blue route climbs gently for 2.4 miles towards a viewpoint over the Severn Valley, with benches and a wooden balance beam along the way. For those wanting more, the black route stretches for 3.5 miles and includes stepping stones across a stream, a dark tunnel of rhododendrons and the remains of a 19th-century ironworks.
According to park manager Rachel Phillips, the woodland has seen a 40% rise in Birmingham visitors since the new facilities opened in autumn 2023. 'We've had families from Solihull, Sutton Coldfield and even Wolverhampton who tell us they had no idea this was all on their doorstep,' she said. 'The fairy doors are simple, but they spark a little bit of magic. You see grandparents pointing them out to toddlers, and kids dragging parents from one tree to the next.'
A woodland with history
This is not a man-made theme park. The site forms part of an ancient royal hunting forest that appears in the Domesday Book, and the sawmill at the heart of the trails was built around 1820 to process oak for the nearby estate. The conservation charity has spent years rewilding the riverbank, encouraging kingfishers and otters back to the area. A small information hut tells the story of charcoal burners and quarrymen who once worked these hills.
Good to know before you go
Entry is free, though donations of £3 per car are suggested to support maintenance. Parking is available for 60 cars on a grass field, and there are two accessible parking bays for blue badge holders. The coffee hut serves hot drinks, cakes and ice cream from a converted horsebox, and there are compostable toilets near the main gate. Dogs on leads are welcome, and mobile phone signal is unreliable – which most visitors say adds to the appeal.
The woodland is open every day from 8am to dusk, with the best fairy hunting conditions after a spell of dry weather, when the paths are firm and the doors are easy to spot. From Birmingham, take the M5 to Junction 3, then the A456 to Bridgnorth and follow brown signs towards the village of Worfield. Postcode for satnavs is WV5 7AH.
Birmingham World visited on a crisp October morning and found a steady stream of families arriving before 10am, many with picnics and packed bags of excitement. One mother from Quinton, who arrived with her two children, said: 'They've been talking about this all week. It's better than any indoor play centre – you feel like you've actually been somewhere.'
You can plan your visit and find out about special events such as the annual lantern walk in December, which attracts more than 2,000 visitors each year.
