Walk the inner bailey and the round chapel at Ludlow Castle

Climb the tower of St Laurence's church for the view over the Marches

Buy from the butchers and bakers around the market square

Walk the loop of the Teme below the castle

Ludlow Castle, probably founded by Walter de Lacy around 1075, became one of the great marcher fortresses, held by the Mortimers and later the seat of the Council in the Marches of Wales, with a rare circular chapel in its inner bailey. The town below it kept its medieval grid and nearly 500 listed buildings, and made its name again as a food town with a September festival and a run of butchers, bakers and brewers.

Ludlow: The Castle in the Marches and the Food Town

Walk the Carding Mill Valley to the Long Mynd plateau, where Pole Bank is 516m high

Climb the Stiperstones to the rock outcrop known as the Devil's Chair

Walk the Port Way, the old ridge track along the Long Mynd

The Long Mynd is a whaleback of heather and bracken above Church Stretton, cut on its eastern side by the Carding Mill Valley and topped at Pole Bank by a view that takes in the Welsh mountains. West across the valley, the Stiperstones run as a quartzite ridge of shattered tors, the biggest and best known of them the Devil's Chair, the rock at the heart of the hill's many legends.

The Long Mynd and the Stiperstones

Walk the preserved stretch of Offa's Dyke at Knighton

Cross the Teme from Wales into England on foot at Knighton

Walk a few miles of the 177-mile Offa's Dyke Path

Offa's Dyke runs roughly along the England–Wales border, an earthwork up to 20m wide with its ditch and 2.4m high, named for Offa of Mercia, who ruled from 757 to 796, though parts of it may be older still. Knighton — Tref-y-clawdd, the town on the dyke — sits astride it, with the Offa's Dyke Centre in the town and a preserved section of the earthwork close by.

Knighton and Offa's Dyke: The Town on the Dyke

Walk the trails of Wyre Forest National Nature Reserve, one of the largest ancient semi-natural woodlands in England

Visit the Wyre Forest Discovery Centre at Callow Hill

Walk the Dowles Brook valley through the forest to the Severn

Wyre Forest is one of the largest ancient semi-natural woodlands in England, now a National Nature Reserve. The Discovery Centre at Callow Hill is the way in, and the Dowles Brook runs down through the forest to the Severn.

Wyre Forest: Ancient Woodland Down to the Severn

Ride the Bridgnorth Cliff Railway, opened in 1892, between High Town and Low Town

See the leaning Norman tower of Bridgnorth Castle in Castle Gardens

Board the Severn Valley Railway at Bridgnorth station

Walk the High Street and down the Cartway to the river

Bridgnorth is built in two halves, High Town on the cliff top and Low Town on the Severn below, joined since 1892 by a cliff railway that bills itself as England's oldest and steepest inland electric funicular. The Severn Valley Railway runs steam sixteen miles down the valley from here to Kidderminster, and the leaning remains of the Norman keep sit in Castle Gardens at an angle steeper than the tower of Pisa.

Bridgnorth: The Cliff Railway and the Severn Valley Railway

Walk across the Iron Bridge over the Severn, built in 1779 by Abraham Darby III as the world's first major bridge of cast iron, and see the tollhouse

Explore Blists Hill Victorian Town, the open-air museum of a Victorian Shropshire town

Visit the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron, beside the furnace where Abraham Darby first smelted iron with coke in 1709

Walk the Ironbridge Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986

In 1709 Abraham Darby first smelted iron with coke at Coalbrookdale, and in 1779 Abraham Darby III built the Iron Bridge over the Severn, the world's first major bridge of cast iron, with its tollhouse at one end. The gorge has been a World Heritage Site since 1986. The Museum of Iron stands beside Darby's furnace, and Blists Hill Victorian Town, now run by the National Trust, recreates a Victorian Shropshire town.

Ironbridge Gorge: The Iron Bridge and Blists Hill

Study the Mappa Mundi and find Hereford on it

See the chained library with the books still on their chains

Walk the Norman nave arcade and the crossing arches

Hereford Cathedral holds the Mappa Mundi, a map of the world drawn around 1300 with Jerusalem at its centre and the edges full of monsters, and the largest chained library in the world, its books still on the rods they were locked to. The building itself is part Norman and part Gothic, rebuilt from ruin by Bishop Robert of Lorraine from 1079.

Hereford: The Mappa Mundi and the Chained Library

Tour Lancaster Castle, where the Pendle witches were tried in 1612, and its Georgian Crown Court

Climb to the Ashton Memorial in Williamson Park

Walk Morecambe promenade and find the Eric Morecambe statue

Look across Morecambe Bay to the Lakeland fells

Lancaster Castle was first used as a prison in 1196 and was a prison again as recently as 2011, which is why so little of it has ever been dug: the Pendle witches were tried here in 1612 and hanged on the moor above. On the hill behind, the Ashton Memorial stands over Williamson Park, and Morecambe looks out across the bay to the Lakeland fells with Eric Morecambe in bronze on the promenade.