Prees Walk No 2.
Prees Walks
WALK 2 – PREES GREEN AND SOULTON HALL updated May 2024
An anti-clockwise 6.2 mile circuit full of interest and surprises
Route notes
1. The walk starts from Prees village car park
(An alternative is to park and start at Soulton Hall and begin the walk at route note 12 – there are a few parking spaces on the left of the farm entrance, immediately to the right of the hall itself. The owner is happy for walkers to park there thoughtfully).
2. Turn right out of the Prees village car park and at the crossroads with the Post Office opposite you, turn left and walk along Shrewsbury Street.
3. You will come to Prees Industrial Estate on your right. This site was originally the Salop Engineering Works (founded in 1926) making agricultural implements. After WW2, it became part of the large Rubery Owen Engineering company employing hundreds of people in the village. Today it is split into a variety of industrial units.
3 Just past the Prees Industrial Estate, turn right down a track leading to a field. Go down the track. Cross a stile into a field, or if the field gate is open you can just walk through.
4 Follow the right-hand field edge. Cross a small stream and through a kissing gate Continue to follow the right-hand field edge. The path has been enclosed by a fence as it runs along the edge of the second (lower) field.
5 Go through a kissing gate and then bear left and through another kissing gate just a few yards on. With a stream on your right follow the field edge until you come to a metal footpath gate.
6 Having gone through the metal gate the actual path goes straight across the field to a gate. If there are crops growing it can be nicer to walk around the field edge next to the stream until you reach the field gate with a footpath gate next to it. Continue through this and through the next field gate until you reach the road (Aldersey Lane).
7 Go left on the road and then right virtually straight away. This is the entrance drive to Aldersey Farm. The footpath continues through a kissing gate on the left of the drive.
8 With the stream now on your left, continue through 2 kissing gates and a field gate. You’re now walking in a field with a wind turbine on your right-hand side. Go through another field gate and turn right along a fence line. Walk to the end of that field and you come to a wooden footbridge.
9 Cross the footbridge, which is over Soulton Brook, and bear half left across the field.
In the far hedge is another wooden footbridge.
Alternative route– at this point a permissive path branches off to the right before you cross the footbridge. You have the option of following the permissive path, which becomes a track, round to the Soulton Long Barrow and onwards to the Hall.
10 For the main route continue over the footbridge and straight across the field to a 3rd footbridge. The path continues across a series of open fields with the increasingly distinctive outline of Soulton Hall (built in 1556) as your guiding landmark. A series of 4 tall waymark posts help to keep you on track in this otherwise featureless stretch of path. Keep a keen eye out for hares. They will often pop up right in front of you. On your right you’ll see the mound of the recently constructed long barrow.
11 As you cross the hedge and into the final field before Soulton Hall, bear left along the field edge – this isn’t formally a footpath but the landowner encourages you to walk this way to reduce distance spent walking on the busy B road. You pass a little wooded area and out through a field gate to join the B road (Prees to Wem road).
NB; If you parked at the Hall then keep walking straight across the field towards the hall on the actual footpath.
12 Walk along the B road towards Prees. Walk on the wide verge as much as possible and take great care – traffic can be fast here. Cross the stone road bridge over Soulton Brook. This bridge was built in 1801 by Thomas Telford during the years when he was County Surveyor for Shropshire and is one of very few still in full use from that time. Once you’re across the bridge turn right off the B road on a track, and then bear left on another clearly waymarked permissive path.
13 Walk parallel to the B road on the permissive path. This path is kindly provided be the landowner to enable walkers to be safe by avoiding the need to walk on the B road.
Having walked to the end of this field keeping the hedge on your left and the B road just on the other side of the hedge, there is a gateway on the left taking you back to the road. Then go through the kissing gate which is diagonally opposite from the gateway on the opposite side of the road. Be careful of the traffic here.
14 Follow the direction indicated by the waymark disc on the gate. You’ll cross the middle of one field, go through a metal footpath gate, and then across the middle of a second field and then through another kissing gate to re-join the B road.
15 Cross the B road and just a few yards to the left turn up a driveway with a neat laurel hedge on the right and a high conifer hedge on the left. Go through a pedestrian gate (to the right of imposing metal main entrance gates) and into a formal garden. Cross 2 stiles as you walk on the right-hand edge of the formal garden with the laurel hedge on your right.
16 Leave the garden over a further stile and bear slightly left to a wooden footbridge over Sidley Moor Brook. Cross the bridge and follow the path round to a series of fishing pools. The path continues between two pools and over a stile into a long meadow.
17 Cross 2 meadows and you come to Hough Farm – the home of Maynards Farm Bacon and a wonderfully stocked farm shop. Here you can also get a takeaway coffee.
A kissing gate brings you out on Maynard’s entrance driveway. Cross the busy A49 and walk down the track directly opposite.
18 Bear right at a fork in the tracks and over a stile next to a wooden gate across a driveway. Then cross a little sleeper bridge and go through a kissing gate. Continue through another kissing gate and a series of small meadows until you come to a stile. Cross the stile onto a lane.
19 This is Nook Lane. Turn left and walk 200 yards along the lane until you come to a house called Penprys on the right. Opposite Penprys go through a kissing gate and then across a wooden footbridge. Continue straight up the edge of the large meadow until you come to a kissing gate which leads on to the B road.
20 Walk to the right for a few yards on the B road. Then cross the road and go through a kissing gate. This next stretch of path takes you through 4 metal footpath gates and over a sleeper bridge. You come out onto a lane (Cruckmoor Lane) where you turn left.
21 Walk along the lane for 30 yards and then turn right over a stile. Walk along the right-hand field edge until, after a cluster of trees you strike out across the field towards a farm gate Next to the gate is a stile. Cross that and head up the hill with the hedge on your left.
PLEASE NOTE – this gateway can be hard to walk through after heavy rain or in mid-winter. It can get very swampy!
22 Halfway up this field cross sides of the field hedge through a kissing gate and carry on walking up the hill – now you have the hedge on your right.
23 Go over the stile next to a farm gate – or open the farm gate. There’s a copse on the right here. Take particular note of the angle that the waymark disc points (bearing slightly left) and follow that direction carefully as you head on up the hill because the brow of the hill prevents you from seeing where you need to go. You will come to a (sometimes very wet and muddy) gateway with a kissing gate next to it. You’re at the highest point on this path.
24 Having walked through the kissing gate bear slightly left and head across the field towards a bungalow with the church tower beyond. Cross a stile onto a track and turn right until you’re back to the road in front of the school.
25 Walk back past the church and head down the hill (Church Street) until you get back to the village car park.
26 You’ve completed the walk.