The team behind the hugely popular annual Ironbridge Gorge Walking Festival are warming up for a weekend of wonderful walks. The 2019 festival runs from Saturday 4 to Sunday 12 May, offering more than 50 free walks over nine days, making it probably the biggest in the West Midlands and one of the best in the country.
The festival offers themed walks ranging from two to 21 miles covering a host of topics from the landscape and geology of the Gorge World Heritage Site to ‘wellness walks’, to those covering the wildlife that inhabits its ancient woodlands.
The walks are graded in terms of suitability for different people, with plenty of short family forays including a tour of Broseley’s jitties, along with long walks including The Gorge by Rail, a linear walk starting and ending at a railway station. And the event aims to embrace the area’s most famous structure: “After a major refurbishment the Iron Bridge can be seen in all its glory again, and for the first time in living memory repainted in its original colour,” says Neil Cartman of the Festival. “Of the 57 walks on offer, over half start from the Bridge so you will have the opportunity to view and photograph on the day.”
For more information go to ironbridgewalking.co.uk or visit the Facebook page; booking on all walks is recommended.
