Review: Morrell’s Wood Farm, Leighton, Shropshire
A restful break on the edge of Shrewsbury promised peace. It brought something deeper. Morrells Wood Farm helped quieten my anxious brain, writes editor, Linda Aitchison.
I didn’t go looking for happiness.
I went because it was close, beautifully open, and looked like somewhere I might finally chill out.
Just 17 miles from our Wolverhampton home, it was an escape that has stayed with me. Almost a year later, I’m only now reporting on it. I’d visited to write, or at least remember what writing feels like when my mind breathes.
A few years earlier, I’d joined a writing retreat on the picture book Scottish island of Tiree and secretly hoped to run something similarly welcoming, closer to home. The fact I wasn’t feeling well enough to scrawl more words beyond my name for a delivery driver wasn’t going to stop me.
I was supposed to submit a travel review.
My angle was set: Shrewsbury was named the UK’s happiest place, scoring highest on friendliness, and green spaces. Little wonder, then, that a summer weekend on a farm on its outskirts, with a serene setting and wonderful hosts, can be a joy.
This is a proper working farm, not a curated cosmetic countryside scene. I wasn’t looking for a packaged, cutesy experience. I needed somewhere honest and calming.
(And if you’re wondering how somewhere this close to the Wrekin counts as Shrewsbury, you’re not alone. Around here, postcodes come with plot twists.)
The accommodation is outstanding — expertly planned, spotless, and spacious. This isn’t rustic chic theatre, it’s the real thing. It’s clear this farming family has worked its socks off to make it somewhere people can switch off.
Last year, my partner, Phill, and I stayed in one of two lodges, Treetops, fondly known simply as the Treehouse, for two nights.
Sitting above a brook, the lodge has a natural soundtrack of running water. From our balcony, woodland stretched out in layered greens of oak, ash and beech. Willows and alder framed more nearby views.
Early mornings brought deer to the water. We spotted a doe twice, moving silently through the trees. Rabbits appeared at dawn on my first walk. Bats flickered at dusk, swallows skimmed the fields.
Previous guests had recalled seeing wrens and robins flitting through hedgerows and even a buzzard circling above
Morrells Wood is a family run, 100 acre beef cattle farm, with cows, calves, sheep, and lambs grazing. Two collies Meg and Connie charm guests, occasionally trotting over for a cwtch.
It’s the perfect spot for a writing retreat.
Five former agricultural buildings are now immaculate holiday cottages, each looking out to Shropshire hills. Four shepherds’ huts well placed for enjoying their surroundings.
Our lodge was warmly styled, with a keen eye for detail and country house feel. A fire pit, al fresco seating, and thoughtful sustainability touches all hint at care, both for guests and for the sprawling land.
With all this peace and wonder, it should have been easy to relax.
For me, because of my own preoccupations though, it wasn’t.
Instead, the stillness made something obvious: I hadn’t been still in a long time.
I’d been shuffling through life on autopilot, aware I wasn’t at my best but not fully recognising how much anxiety had taken hold. A contrast between abundant calm around me and noise raging in my head became impossible to ignore.
I was born in Shrewsbury. This sweeping landscape was familiar to me. I found myself questioning the sanity of being there. Why review somewhere so close to home? Would anyone care what a local thought of staying down the road?
We were moments from the Mytton & Mermaid, a pub where I’d enjoyed hilarious nights in my teens and twenties. These happy times felt painfully distant.
Everything at Morrells Wood was secure in its place, comfortable, useful, authentic. Inside, I felt anything but.
I became overly agitated at the thought of being late for our table at The Mill. I comically tiptoed down dry paths as if they were slick with rain, convinced I was going to fall. This showed me how anxiety had taken hold and that I needed, and deserved, help.
Bereavement had debilitated me over and over. Mine was a life interrupted. The summer of 2025 marked two and a half years since my brother, Phil, died, ten miles from the farm.
Thankfully, there were plenty of lighter moments. Derek, the farmer, is a brilliant man to listen to. He has an unmistakable lilting Shrewsbury accent — soft around the edges, vowels rounded — and as he spoke, I felt myself slipping back into it too. I’d even studied the county’s dialect as part of my Wolverhampton Poly linguistics course. I’ve never lost my affection for it.
Phill and I walked three and a half miles to The Huntsman in Little Wenlock, cutting through open fields where cows keenly watched us. I swung between laughter and low level panic, convinced at any moment one might decide to charge and I’d be a goner.
I recalled childhood exploring with my mum and brother, where “a walk” often meant running through fields of heifers as fast as possible and hoping for the best.
Curious about how the farm was diversifying, I asked Derek about weddings, and he mentioned he’d partnered with the Wroxeter Hotel for guests’ stays. The hotel name stirred something in me. Later, I asked my dad if we’d ever been. His answer floored me: his dad, my lovely grandad Stan, had been a gardener there. A tender coincidence as I reflected on our family’s past.
More memories followed: blackberry picking at Wenlock Edge ignoring advice not to eat them raw before cramps gripped our tummies. We collected our spoils in 1980s family size ice cream tubs, old Walls ones from Woolworths, washed out and warped. We’d abandon our pickings when our bellies groaned or when we spotted a worm curled up. Still, we returned often, spurred on by blind optimism that this time it would be different, and my mum would finally make a pie with a bountiful harvest. She managed one or two over the years, triumphs that remain in family legend.
Next to the farm boundary, small adventures waited. Footpaths and tracks are dotted with geocaches, tiny hidden containers, part of a global treasure hunt. Phill threw himself into it, following clues through bushes and up trees. His knees grazed in his enthusiasm. He didn’t care; as a geocacher for at least two decades, his heart sang to be back at it, delighted at how many were there to be found in such a close area.
Exactly a mile down a subtly declining track, The Mill, a village pub saved by a community buyout was thriving. Its tale of survival, community, and a rescue that kept the pub alive intrigued us. Neighbours stepped in, pooling their savings, and determination to save a place that mattered.
Further afield, Morrells Wood sits within easy reach of Attingham Park, and Ironbridge Gorge.
On our last morning, I spoke to a Wednesfield woman treating her elderly mum to a night away “for the fresh air and peace and quiet.” They were glowing. They couldn’t believe how near it was, how easily they’d felt far removed from everyday life.
I understood.
For me, it was a much-needed pause.
Since then, I’ve slowly understood how thinly stretched my nervous system had become, worn out by cumulative grief. Just as I grabbed an opportunity to do at Morrells Wood, I gave myself permission to do nothing. First for an hour, then a day, then a week outside of working hours. Eventually my doctor said I should have a whole month to help repair my shattered nerves. My awakening didn’t happen overnight. But it initially blossomed at Morrells Wood, as I breathed in the summer air and inched myself along forgotten pathways.
Today, I feel more like myself. I’m steadier and clearer. I’ve been commissioned to write two travel books, something I’m still adjusting to saying aloud. I find my thoughts wandering back to our soul nourishing woodland lodge.
Not as somewhere to run to, but somewhere I could return to differently.
With the familiar steep rise of the Wrekin in the distance and a babbling brook below, I will open my notebook.
A place to begin again.
Find out more: https://morrellswoodfarm.co.uk/
Where We Begin:
If you have a special place that has been a launchpad to your creative take offs — however small, strange, different, quirky, or unexpected — we’d love to hear from you.