Shropshire is quintessential England, obviously. But as you head towards our north west corner, you get an inescapable feeling of, well...Welshness washing over you.
For here, around Oswestry, the mountains of Wales embrace our green and pleasant county at no extra charge and as you delve deeper you'll find a blending of cultures that's created a unique and genuine Anglo-Welsh alliance.
The many remnants of more turbulent times show that Oswestry was once a strategically vital frontier town. An ancient hill-fort , said to be the birthplace of Queen Guinevere, stands proud overlooking the town and Offa's Dyke marks out the border between these two great nations.
Oswestry has been home to many poets, musicians, eccentrics and villains. The greatest of Great War poets, Wilfred Owen, was born here in 1893, but it must have been a blushing crow to the English teachers at the local Grammar School (now Oswestry Heritage centre) when they produced the Reverend Spooner, of Spoonerism fame.
Today's Oswestry has become a natural setting for a vibrant market town and today has the largest street market in the Borderlands, with more than its fair share of specialty shops and eateries jostling with the market stalls, showing what a truly vibrant market town should be.