THE BOG VISITOR CENTRE

NOW OPEN EVERY DAY DURING THE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

The team of volunteers who run it believe it is unique as Britain's only gas-lit visitor centre. And here is its lovely setting on Shropshire's border with Wales. Housed in a former Victorian school in a quiet haven at the foot of the Stiperstones National Nature Reserve, the centre is shown here at bottom right, with Corndon Hill behind it. There is some parking at the centre but the large main car park can be seen on the left of the picture. Standing in ideal walking country, The Bog Visitor Centre attracts a huge range of visitors from all over Britain and indeed the world (nearly 19,000 in 2009) and the pictures below illustrate their diversity. Ponies Benji and Simba are shown enjoying a welcome rest while visitors from Cornwall and elsewhere in Shropshire relax over the centre's legendary home-baked refreshments. Members of the Morgan Three Wheeler Club from Lancashire and Oxfordshire are shown setting off in their splendid 1930s vehicles. And inside, the busy Centre is dominated by a huge, strking mural of the Stiperstones ridge painted by an artist living close by. It is hard to imagine the days when The Bog was a hive of industrial activity. But right here indeed was a busy mining community of typical Shropshire folk, in an isolated spot 1,300 feet above sea level, with a hard-won haul of lead and barytes. Some traces of this lost village survive, including the school building, and around it the remains of The Bog's industrial past can be seen, including the Somme Tunnel, the powder magazine, the Miners Arms (now a private house) and the Miners' Institute - though not an amazing aerial ropeway which soared up and away over the hill. And all in a land of lore and legend...and the exploits of Wild Edric. Unmissable.

2010 OPENING DATES:

Daily from 10.00am until the end of October for all school holidays and Bank Holidays, otherwise Wednesday-Sunday each week. We close at 5.00pm (4.00pm in October) but last orders for the kitchen are at 4.45pm (3.45pm in October). The Centre will reopen for its traditional Christmas Fair on the weekend of November 06/07. For further information phone 01743 792484