Shrewsbury sits in a loop of the River Severn so tight that the town is nearly an island, which is exactly why it was such a prized defensive position for most of its thousand-year history. The old centre is a tangle of narrow medieval lanes — the "shuts" and "passages" that thread between the black-and-white timber-framed buildings — and walking through it you get an unusually intact sense of what an English market town looked like before the twentieth century got to it.
The town is the county town of Shropshire, and it wears its history lightly. The impressive red sandstone castle overlooks the railway station, and Shrewsbury Abbey — where the fictional monk-detective Brother Cadfael solves his crimes in Ellis Peters' novels — sits just across the river. The town also claims Charles Darwin as its most famous son; he was born here in 1809 and the house where he grew up is being developed as a heritage site.
Market days on Tuesday and Saturday still bring traders to The Square and the indoor market hall, as they have for centuries. St Mary's Church in the town centre holds one of the finest collections of medieval stained glass in England. Shrewsbury is also a good base for exploring the Welsh Marches — the border country of hill forts, ruined abbeys, and quiet valleys stretching south and west into Wales.