Welshampton

Hotels are thin on the ground in Welshampton itself, which is a genuine one-pub village rather than a tourist town, but that is part of its appeal for anyone wanting a quiet rural base. Most visitors either book a farmhouse bed and breakfast or self-catering cottage in the immediate parish, or head five minutes down the road to Ellesmere, where the choice widens to include small independent hotels and inns with rooms set around the market town and its own mere. Ellesmere's options tend to be modest in scale, reflecting the town's size, but they put you within walking distance of the Mere, the Sculpture Trail and the town's shops and restaurants.

Further afield, Oswestry and Whitchurch both offer a broader spread of hotel accommodation for anyone who wants more choice of chain hotels or budget options, while still being a manageable drive from the meres and mosses around Welshampton. Wherever you base yourself, the appeal of this part of North Shropshire is the same: quiet countryside, glacial lakes, and a slower pace than the more heavily visited parts of the county.

None of the following is more than a short drive or a good long walk from the village, and several are within a couple of miles.

• Colemere Country Park — A glacial mere ringed by woodland, three miles from Welshampton and designated a Local Nature Reserve, SSSI and Ramsar site. There is a circular lakeside walk, a picnic area and reliable sightings of wildfowl including goldeneye and pochard.
• The Mere, Ellesmere — The largest of Shropshire's meres sits right in the middle of the market town of Ellesmere. Cremorne Gardens run along one side, the Sculpture Trail loops around the water, and you can hire a rowing boat or take a trip on the Lady Katherine steam launch.
• Llangollen Canal at Whixall — This stretch of the Shropshire Union Canal network is popular with narrowboat holidaymakers and towpath walkers alike. Whixall Marina is a good access point, and the towpath makes for flat, easy walking or cycling in either direction.
• Fenn's, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve — One of Britain's largest lowland raised bogs, straddling the England-Wales border a few miles north-west of the village. Boardwalks cross the peat, and the reserve is known for rare dragonflies and sphagnum moss habitat found almost nowhere else in lowland Britain.
• Ellesmere town centre — A genuine Shropshire market town with a castle mound, Georgian and Victorian streets, independent shops and a Tuesday market that has been running for centuries.
• Cole Mere and Crose Mere — Further examples of the region's glacial meres, both offering quieter, less-visited walking routes than Ellesmere's main lake.

The Sun Inn on Ellesmere Road is the village's own pub, serving pub food to locals and passing canal boat crews. For more choice, Ellesmere's town centre has a handful of well-regarded options including the Red Lion, a sixteenth-century coaching inn, and the Boathouse, which overlooks the Mere itself from within the park. Both towns keep things simple and unpretentious, in line with the wider area.

Wild camping without the landowner's permission is illegal in England, so anywhere you pitch a tent around Welshampton needs to be an official site or with the express agreement of whoever owns the land. That said, this stretch of North Shropshire is well suited to camping trips: the terrain around the meres is gentle and largely flat, making for easy walking and cycling between sites, and the network of small lakes, canal towpaths and nature reserves gives campers plenty to explore without needing to drive far each day.

Touring caravan and camping sites in the area tend to be small, family-run affairs rather than large holiday parks, often set on farmland within a few miles of Welshampton, Colemere or Ellesmere. Facilities vary considerably from one site to the next, so it is worth checking what is included, particularly for anyone travelling with a tent rather than a caravan or motorhome. Glamping options, including shepherd's huts and static safari tents, have also become more common across rural Shropshire in recent years, offering a warmer alternative for visitors who want the setting without sleeping under canvas.

Late spring to early autumn is the best window for camping here. The ground around the meres and mosses can become genuinely waterlogged over winter, and access paths across reserves like Fenn's and Whixall Mosses are boardwalked precisely because the peat beneath is often saturated. Midges and other insects are also part of life near still water in high summer, so it is worth packing accordingly. Whatever the season, a fully-equipped, well-drained site with good drainage will make for a far more comfortable stay than attempting to camp rough on the mossland itself.