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Celebrity Shropshire

Perhaps it’s our special Shropshire welcome that makes us so well-loved by the cult of celebrity. Not only do we have Hollywood stars like Harrison Ford and Calista Flockheart willing to spend their well-earned break from filming cruising our canals, but we have managed to attract the likes of Hollywood star Pete Postlethwaite to actually live here.

Of course, Shropshire is no stranger to celebrity visitors with the Queen popping to see us and Princess Anne visiting the RAF Museum at Cosford. Even President Clinton visited Shropshire as part of the GM Summit at Weston Park and Bob Geldof was in Ludlow in time for our famous festival.

More recently Keira Knightley and James McAvoy have been filming the box office smash hit 'Atonement' around Stokesay Court in south Shropshire.

Surely that’s reason enough for a visit and will definitely put you in good company!

The celebrity lifestyle can all be yours with a visit to Ludlow, Shropshire’s gastronomic capital, where you can eat like a King in our Michelin starred restaurant. Good food, good Company and an expanding waistline to match!

And lets not forget Ironbridge, Shropshire’s very own World Heritage Site and birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Ten different museums await to amuse and entertain you. The Iron Bridge itself is a site to be seen where even the Queen had to pay the toll to cross the bridge!

Shropshire’s County town, Shrewsbury is the perfect place for retail therapy with lots of small independent shops that many other places lost years ago.

There's also Oswestry, land of myth and fable and home to heroes, poets, musicians and eccentrics. You can go on a themed walking tour of the town, starting from Oswestry Town Tourist Information Centre.

Of course, while some of our celebrity visitors are content to simply pay us a visit, others have actually worked here. You may even have seen us on the television, or at your local cinema.

Shropshire is regularly chosen by filmmakers as a backdrop for box office hits that are seen all over the world. Perhaps the all-time classic is the evocative adaptation of Mary Webb’s novel “Gone to Earth”. Not only was Mary Webb born and raised in Shropshire, but the film adaptation used some of the most striking parts of our lovely county.

“Gone to Earth” was recorded in 1949 around Much Wenlock, the Stiperstones and the Devil’s Chair, and the landscape today has changed little since then.You’ll still find it hauntingly atmospheric.

Of course, whilst film making moved on and the brooding flickering celluloid that captured the county in “Gone to Earth” made way for glorious Technicolor, new producers and directors also fell in love with Shropshire.

Richard Burton also popped by to film Absolution in 1978 which was filmed at Ellesmere College, although regrettably both critics and public alike viewed it as 'not one of Burton's best films!'

In 1980 the production crew of the comedy film “Clockwise” which starred John Cleese again used the charming Shropshire town of Much Wenlock for one of its central locations.

And in 1984, the cast and crew of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” transformed Shrewsbury from our late 20th century county town into a snowy, Victorian England. Indeed the production team took over the whole of the Prince Rupert Hotel, while St Chad’s Church still has a more permanent record of the film, in the form of the gravestone of Ebenezer Scrooge.

We have also been visited by Hugh Grant whilst he was filming “The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain”. The filming actually took place at Hampton Loade and other locations near to Oswestry.

The Oscar Winning drama “Howards End” brought in big names like Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson to Brampton Bryan, near Ludlow.

It’s not just on the big screen that Shropshire has been seen. Television has also been around and about our county with television crews filming series of “Oliver Twist”, “The Pickwick Papers” and “Oh, Doctor Beeching”, amongt many others.

Some of our top attractions such as Hawkstone Park & Follies and The Ironbridge Gorge Museums have also been seen on the small screen. Hawkstone was the perfect setting for the BBC adaptation of “The Chronicles of Narnia”, and Ludlow Castle was the centrepiece for ITV’s “Moll Flanders”.

And if you were around Blists Hill in 1985, you’d have seen Kate O’ Mara in leather trousers doing battle with Colin Baker as “Doctor Who”.

This celebrity fascination with Shropshire shows no signs of slowing. In 2005, Chirk Castle was chosen as one of the locations for the BBC’s version of “Cassonova”. You may also have spotted John Challis (Boysie) of “Only Fools and Horses” fame filming the spin-off “The Green, Green Grass” in the countryside around Ludlow.

So for the perfect celebrity retreat, Shropshire fits the bill. After all, Harrison and Calista thought so.

However, of all the famous folk who have graced our county, perhaps Shropshire remains the real celebrity.

For a copy of the Shropshire and the Welsh Borders brochure with quality, award winning accommodation and more attractions and places to visit than you can shake a stick at, go to the brochure request page to obtain your very own celebrity copy.