Tower, village and field paths
Shenstone
A Staffordshire village shaped by a roofless medieval tower, its Victorian successor, independent stops and field paths.
- Best for
- Church history, pub character and country walking
- Give it
- Editorial estimate: a relaxed half day, or longer with the Stonnall circuit
- Don't miss
- The Old Church Tower and the Norman font in St John's
Photo: Geoff Pick · CC BY-SA 2.0 · cropped
The Fox verdict
A village whose oldest landmark refused to disappear
Shenstone pairs the sole surviving fragment of its former medieval parish church with practical village life, characterful pubs and an outward path across the fields.
Start with the roofless Old Church Tower and the Victorian St John the Baptist beside it, then choose between an independent butcher, traditional pubs and the village playing fields. The Shenstone-to-Stonnall circuit adds a longer field-path option for a fuller day.
Where to go
Places in Shenstone
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesShenstone to Stonnall Circuit
A roughly 8.7-mile circuit of field paths and quiet lanes linking Shenstone with Stonnall via Mill Lane, with less than 100 metres of ascent.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 3 hours 30 minutes
- Locality
- between Shenstone and Stonnall
- Access
- The route has six stiles and field sections can be muddy after rain.
The Plough at Shenstone
A traditional rural pub at the heart of Shenstone since 1840, with a long bar, two lounges, real fires and Batham's Best Bitter and Mild.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 1 hour 15 minutes
- Locality
- Shenstone
Shenstone Playing Fields
Open space with a play area, circular wheelchair-width paths, outdoor keep-fit equipment and a multi-use games area for basketball and football.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 1 hour
- Locality
- Shenstone
Food & drink
3 places
Fox & Hounds
An 18th-century Grade II listed village pub with traditional food, pub games, a beer garden and dog-friendly access.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 1 hour 15 minutes
- Locality
- Shenstone
The Bull's Head
A 17th-century country pub with a beamed and panelled interior, log fires, a beer garden and a dog treat bar in the bar area.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 1 hour 15 minutes
- Locality
- Shenstone
Russell's Butchers
An independent butcher specialising in free-range, grass-fed and locally sourced meat, alongside prepared burgers, koftas, sausages and pantry goods.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 20 minutes
- Locality
- Shenstone
History & heritage
2 placesOld Church Tower
The Grade II* roofless tower is the only standing fragment of Shenstone's medieval parish church, with four corner pinnacles and evidence of earlier fabric beneath it.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Shenstone
- Access
- The tower has a restoration programme; confirm current access before visiting.
St John the Baptist Church
John Gibson's large Early English-style church dates from 1852–53 and contains the plain tub-shaped Norman font transferred from the demolished medieval church.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 35 minutes
- Locality
- Shenstone
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Three ways to explore Shenstone
Signature outings
Explore the roofless tower
Look up at the four corner pinnacles of the medieval parish church's only standing fragment.
Step into St John's
Find the plain tub-shaped Norman font that was moved into the Victorian church after its predecessor was demolished.
Eat at a listed pub
Choose traditional pub food at the 18th-century Fox & Hounds, with its garden for fine weather.
The village story
Shenstone Village Guide
A medieval tower, a Victorian successor, lived-in village institutions and paths leading out across Staffordshire fields.
The Tower and the High Street
Four stone pinnacles mark the corners of the Old Church Tower, roofless and open to the sky, a few yards from the church that replaced it in 1852-53. It's the only piece of the medieval parish church left standing — the rest was pulled down when the new St John the Baptist went up next door, and the tower kept on purpose, to house the bells. A 1973 dig into its foundations found sandstone finished by a rubbing technique, read as a sign of Saxon work, under a Norman nave dated to the late 1100s.
Walk down into the village and it's the ordinary stuff that's still here: a doctor's surgery, a chemist, a dentist, a library, a post office and a convenience store, plus a wine bar, all within walking distance on the high street. Russell's Butchers, a Butcher's Shop of the Year finalist, sells lamb merguez, pork and apple burgers and lamb koftas alongside free-range, grass-fed cuts from animals kept off growth promoters and antibiotics.
Four Pubs, Four Characters
There are four pubs in the village, one of them by the station. The Plough at Shenstone has been open since 1840, a long single bar with two lounges, real fires and a heated tent for beer garden overflow. Batham's Best Bitter and Batham's Mild are on year-round, Batham's XXX at Christmas; the menu runs from crab arancini to Caribbean beef curry to sticky toffee pudding. Manager Connor Roberts put it plainly: "I would not want to work in any other village than Shenstone."
The Fox and Hounds is Grade II listed and 18th century, fish and chips reviewers rate for value. The Bull's Head is older still — 17th century, beamed and panelled — with Sharp's Doom Bar and a free treat bar for dogs. Landlord Chris Callow likes that Shenstone is "close enough to big cities that you can go and do activities and enjoy them, but then it's far out enough that you can avoid all the bad things that come with living in a city." The Railway Inn sits by the station, breakfast from 9am Saturdays.
Field Paths and Rotary Engines
A route of about 8.7 miles of field paths and quiet lanes crosses to Stonnall via Mill Lane, muddy after rain; the longer Little Sutton and Shenstone Circular runs 10.8 miles. Shenstone Tennis Club, founded in 1972 by villagers who raised the money themselves, was named Staffordshire's Tennis Club of the Year in 2023, the year its two new artificial-grass courts went in.
Domesday records the manor at 100 shillings — five pounds — with 21 villagers, four smallholders, one slave and a mill, held in 1086 by Robert d'Oilly. Between 1978 and 1992 the village made motorcycles: Norton's factory here built the Interpol 2, the rotary-engined police bike ridden by UK forces, the armed forces and the RAC.
The Font That Outlasted Its Church
The old tower has a restoration fund now. Friends of Shenstone Tower secured a £395,907 Historic England grant after villagers started the campaign in 2019. The Norman font that once stood inside it — tub-shaped, possibly over a thousand years old — is now in the new church's south aisle, having outlasted the building it was made for.
In 2024, Shenstone made the Daily Telegraph's list of Britain's poshest villages. Locals weren't having it. "We're not posh," one resident told the Express & Star, "we're desirable."
Stay around Staffordshire
Make a longer stay of it
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Photography credits & licences
Third-party photographs are credited to their named creators and reused under the linked Creative Commons licence or public-domain dedication. Travel Fox stores an optimised local copy; the file-specific changes and any browser-applied display crop are disclosed below. Reused photographs link both to the Wikimedia Commons source record and to the declared source image; Travel Fox's own photographs carry no such record and are marked as ours. These image licences do not cover Travel Fox text, branding or page design.
- File:Fox and Hounds, Shenstone.jpg — photograph by Geoff Pick; Geoff Pick. Source record on Wikimedia Commons. Declared source image. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. File changes: Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons, resized to a maximum 1920px edge and encoded as an optimised JPEG. Display changes: Displayed with responsive CSS cropping.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Old Church Tower — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- St John the Baptist Church — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Shenstone to Stonnall Circuit — ramblers.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- The Plough at Shenstone — theploughatshenstone.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Fox & Hounds — foxandhoundsshenstone.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Bull's Head — vintageinn.co.uk other published source record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Russell's Butchers — russellsbutchers.com operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Shenstone Playing Fields — shenstone-staffs.gov.uk statutory register or public authority