Craven Arms is a market town and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to t ...

, England, on the

A49 road The A49 is an A road in western England, which traverses the Welsh Marches region. It runs north from Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire via Hereford, Leominster, Ludlow, Shrewsbury and Whitchurch, then continues through central Cheshire to Warri ...

and the

Welsh Marches The Welsh Marches ( cy, Y Mers) is an imprecisely defined area along the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods. The English term Welsh March (in Medieval Latin ...

railway line, which link it north and south to the larger towns of

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as eith ...

and

Ludlow Ludlow () is a market town in Shropshire, England. The town is significant in the history of the Welsh Marches and in relation to Wales. It is located south of Shrewsbury and north of Hereford, on the A49 road which bypasses the town. The ...

respectively. The Heart of Wales railway line joins the Welsh Marches line at Craven Arms and the town is served by Craven Arms railway station. The town is enclosed to the north by the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and to the south is the fortified

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals wi ...

Stokesay Castle Stokesay Castle is one of the finest surviving fortified manor houses in England, and situated at Stokesay in Shropshire. It was largely built in its present form in the late 13th century by Laurence de Ludlow, on the earlier castle (some of w ...

. Craven Arms is a

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rura ...

for the surrounding rural area, with a number of shops, banks, estate agents, a supermarket, an

abattoir A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...

and many commercial/light industrial businesses. It is also a visitor destination, being home or nearby to a number of attractions, and being central for visitors to the area of outstanding natural beauty. It describes itself as the "Gateway to the

Marches In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland, as opposed to a national "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which di ...

History

Craven Arms is a relatively new town (for Shropshire), being only a small village called Newton on a map of 1695. The settlement grew when the

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

came during the mid to late 19th century, making it a

railway town A railway town, or railroad town, is a settlement that originated or was greatly developed because of a railway station or junction at its site. North America During the construction of the First transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, tempor ...

. Newton or Newtown is still the name for the southeastern part of the present day town, while the northern part is called Newington or New Inn (another small village which existed prior to the town). The town takes its name from the Craven Arms Hotel, which was situated on the junction of the A49 and B4368 roads, which in turn is named after the Lords Craven (who owned nearby

). The

of Craven Arms was formed in 1987 by the merging of two older parishes — Stokesay and Halford. These two older entities continued as parish wards; however, a review of the governance of the parish in 2012 concluded that these two wards would be abolished from May 2013. Small parts of the settlement overlap into neighbouring Wistanstow and Sibdon Carwood parishes.

Geography

Nearby towns are

Bishop's Castle Bishop's Castle is a market town in the south west of Shropshire, England. According to the 2011 Census it had a population of 1,893. Bishop's Castle is east of the Wales-England border, about north-west of Ludlow and about south-west of S ...

, Clun, Church Stretton and

, of which the last is the most substantial with 10,000 inhabitants. The River Onny flows to the town's east and just over the river is the small village of Halford. To the south is the small village of Stokesay, while to the north is the village of Wistanstow. Wenlock Edge is to the northeast of the town and runs in a northeasterly direction, towards

Much Wenlock Much Wenlock is a market town and parish in Shropshire, England, situated on the A458 road between Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth. Nearby, to the northeast, is the Ironbridge Gorge, and the new town of Telford. The civil parish includes the villa ...

Attractions

Stokesay Castle, Shropshire (28621371194)

There are three main visitor attractions in the Craven Arms civil parish. In the town there is the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre, a centre featuring exhibits about the county's geography; and Stella Mitchell's Land of Lost Content Museum, a collection of 20th-century memorabilia.

is a fortified manor house located within the parish, just south of the town.

Religious sites

Craven Arms is home to several churches. The Anglican parish church is the grade II listed church of St Thomas, outside the town in the village of Halford. The grade I listed church of St John is south of the town near

. St Andrews Community Church in the town centre is "non-denominational, evangelical & charismatic", and there is a

Methodist church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

, and a

Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...

Kingdom Hall. A small

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...

ic centre is in the town on Newton Street. It is the only mosque for the surrounding

Shropshire Hills The Shropshire Hills are a dissected upland area and one of the natural regions of England. They lie wholly within the county of Shropshire and encompass several distinctive and well-known landmarks, such as the Long Mynd, Wenlock Edge, The Wre ...

. The other nearest mosques are in Shrewsbury and

Telford Telford () is a town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, about east of Shrewsbury, south west of Stafford, north west of Wolverhampton and from Birmingham in the same direction. With an ...

Recent development

The town has recently gone through a phase of expansion and this looks set to continue with the (2009 abolished)

South Shropshire District Council South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþ ...

stating that they wished to see the town become the district's second main

(after

) by 2026. Much of the recent housing development is on the west side of the town, whilst commercial development is taking place more on the northern end. Development potential towards the east is restricted by the floodplain of the River Onny, whilst to the south lies the historically important Stokesay Castle. The town centre itself has seen some notable developments in recent years, with new commercial buildings built on Dale Street by the

. Additionally, to the immediate south of the town centre is the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre which opened in 2001 and some new housing.

Notable people

* Brian Farley (1927 in Craven Arms – 1962) an English professional footballer who played for Chelmsford City and

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...

Cultural links

Bruce Chatwin Charles Bruce Chatwin (13 May 194018 January 1989) was an English travel writer, novelist and journalist. His first book, '' In Patagonia'' (1977), established Chatwin as a travel writer, although he considered himself instead a storyteller, ...

wrote ''On the Black Hill'' whilst staying at Cwm Hall near the town. *The film ''Atonement'' was filmed in part near Stokesay.

References

{{authority control Market towns in Shropshire Towns of the Welsh Marches Railway towns in England Towns in Shropshire Civil parishes in Shropshire