The UK staycation vacation spot dubbed ‘paradise on earth’ that’s a fraction of the worth of going overseas

SHROPSHIRE, the nice author PG Wodehouse as soon as stated, is “the closest earthly place to paradise”.

And after spending an autumn half-term week sampling its sights, it’s straightforward to see why the creator of Jeeves and Wooster was considered one of so many to fall in love with this county.

Shrewsbury may simply be mistaken for Oxford or Cambridge

I used to be visiting with my spouse Lizzy and daughters Alice and Harriet, staying on the 4H Park House Hotel at Shifnal — and we had been within the excellent spot to discover.

Our first cease was Shrewsbury, a stupendous medieval citadel neglected by an imposing red-brick fort and spires of historic church buildings.

Standing by the banks of the Severn watching college students rowing, you may virtually be in Oxford or Cambridge.

Get misplaced within the slender passageways of half-timbered Tudor buildings and also you could be in York.

Indeed, one pleasant native boasted to us: “It’s higher than York.

“Here you don’t have the crowds.”

In the city we had been pleasantly shocked by the vary of impartial outlets, particularly the indoor Market Hall, which has a terrific assortment of stalls promoting all the pieces from fruit and veg to home-made playing cards and vinyl records — a terrific place to begin our Christmas buying.

Keeping with the Christmas theme, we then ventured to one of many city’s most curious sights, the damaged headstone of Ebenezer Scrooge in St Chad’s graveyard.

Scrooge was, after all, a fictional character created by Charles Dickens and the tombstone is in actual fact a movie prop left from a 1984 film adaptation of A Christmas Carol, however it’s undoubtedly value a go to.

Another off-beat attraction was lunch at Paws Cafe (pawscafe.co.uk).

Paws Cafe is among the extra uncommon native sights you possibly can select to dine at

It is house to 11 cats who soar on the tables and infrequently, in your shoulders as you tuck into scrumptious sandwiches, teas and coffees.

Our cat-loving youngsters spent extra time fussing over the felines than they did consuming.

If that doesn’t enchantment, strive the Boat House, an historic pub in a unbelievable place on the banks of the Severn (boathouseshrewsbury.co.uk).

The meals and ambiance had been great — strive the pan-fried rooster, then sticky toffee pudding.

After lunch we did time . . . on a tour of Shrewsbury Prison.

Built within the 1790s, it was nonetheless in service till ten years in the past and has featured in TV’s The Apprentice, actuality present Banged Up and BBC dramas Time and Happy Valley.

We obtained to take a seat in a jail van parked within the courtyard earlier than being taken on a 90-minute tour.

Shrewsbury Prison is open for excursions and is usually used as a filming location

The Victorian cells are tiny and chilly, with an uncomfortable ambiance — not less than three ghosts are stated to hang-out the wings.

Our tour ended on the jail’s grisliest exhibit, the condemned cell and execution chamber, full with noose and drop, final utilized in 1961.

Our youngest, Harriet, and her mum skipped this final a part of the tour.

It just isn’t at all times the simplest of vacationer sights however maybe some of the thought-provoking.

For one thing extra upbeat, Ironbridge Valley of Invention, a gaggle of ten museums, tells the story of Shropshire’s Ironbridge Gorge and its essential position in beginning the Industrial Revolution.

A Unesco World Heritage Site, it gives an excessive amount of to do in sooner or later, so it’s value contemplating a household Pass Plus (£96, ironbridge.org.uk), which provides household entry to all of the museums for a 12 months.

We began at Enginuity, the place interactive engineering-based actions stored our ladies enthralled, and the location of the furnace the place Abraham Darby first smelted iron utilizing coke.

The Ironbridge Valley of Invention is a Unesco World Heritage Site with entry to 10 museums

The spotlight was the Blists Hill Victorian Town, a recreation of commercial life that includes reclaimed interval buildings, with merchants and locals in interval costume.

On arrival you modify your cash on the financial institution into shillings and pence which may be spent in numerous outlets, the preferred with our ladies being the bakery and the candy store.

We additionally met pleasant Victorian PC Guy Rowlands, who on listening to it was Alice’s 14th birthday, insisted on taking her to the old-style pub.

Not for a drink, after all, however to play Happy Birthday on the piano.

Those Victorians actually knew tips on how to have a good time.