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A Town Profile Of Craven Arms>>What's Here>>Tourist Info

South Shropshire Local Plan (1989 - 2006) states that....

.....Craven Arms is a busy market town situated on the lower lying land between Hopesay Hill and Norton Camp Wood. It adjoins the River Onny and it lies just outside the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is set in very attractive countryside at the junction of the A49 and B4368. Communications to Craven Arms are good and the small town is served by the Marches Line with good rail services to Cardiff and Crewe. It is also the junction for the Heart of Wales Line which links Shrewsbury and Swansea, and provides a passenger rail service to many small communities in central Wales.

The local plan goes on to say that Watling Street to the west of the town is a fine example of a Roman road and there are a number of sites within the vicinity which indicate the remains of a Roman settlement. There is no mention of either Newton or Craven Arms in the Domesday Book but the small hamlet of Stokesay to the south of the market town is referred to. The oldest buildings in Craven Arms are in the hamlet of Newton which is now part of Craven Arms. These date from the 17th century. However the development of the town did not take place until it was first established as a staging post for horse drawn coaches and more importantly as a railway town in the middle of 19th century. In the past 40 years there has been a substantial amount of new development and since the mid 1980s some hundred new dwellings have been built together with a new supermarket and several small industrial and business premises.