It is a lovely place to visit not only do you get a guided tour that explains the history and how the mill works.  There is also opportunity to walk around the mill pools and through the surrounding woodlands which allow views of the mill from different perspectives.

There is also the opportunity to walk under the viaduct (part of the severn valley railway) and view it from both sides along with trains travelling along the viaduct.  The walk also allows you to see the track and the steam trains at eye level.  The train drivers often blow the trains whistle and wave to visitors as the train passes by.  The flour that the mill produces can be purchased raw or in the form of scones in the tea shop.

Highley railway station is a station on the Severn Valley Railway heritage line in Shropshire, near the west bank of the River Severn and just under a mile south-east of the village of Highley. Highley is the only staffed single-platform station on the line. Other stops with one platform are unstaffed halts.

Highley station opened to the public on 1 February 1862 and closed on 9 September 1963, before the Beeching axe closures.

Highley station was important as the transport hub of a colliery district, with four nearby coal mines linked to the Severn Valley line by standard and narrow gauge lines, cable inclines and aerial ropeways . There were extensive sidings along the line, and wagon repair works at Kinlet, half-a-mile south.

The station was inconveniently far from Highley so the arrival of a bus service seriously affected use of the station.

The signal box opposite the platform remained in use until 1969 when Alveley colliery closed and freight traffic ceased. The station site was disused until preservation.

Yesterday the weather was glorious, so we took advantage of the sunshine and took a leisurely drive through the Shropshire countryside to Highley Station and Engine house. We arrived just in time for lunch, which we ate sitting on the balcony overlooking the railway track. We timed it just right to watch a couple of trains go by and capture a few photographs.

We then headed home taking in more of the countryside, stopping for a cup of tea along the way. I also managed to locate I garden centre that I hadn’t been to for years. It is now on my list of things to do on another day.  Along Wenlock edge we noticed several scarecrows along the roadside, there was even ‘a scared crow’.  After a bit of research I found out that they were leading the way to a flower festival at St Peter’s church, Rushbury.

Even though the nights are drawing in now, it was possible to dine on the patio as the sun went down behind my oak tree.

From a signboard at Daniels Mill:

In the late 1850s the railway came to the area and the imposing Oldbury Viaduct was built.  Absorbed into the Great Western Railway in the 1870s, the mill owners were one of many small share owners of the original construction company.

The connection has been maintained, and the present miller Alan George, became a founder member of the Severn Valley Railway Society set up in the late 1960s to rescue the line after it was closed under the ‘Beeching Axe’.  Today it operates as a successful heritage railway with regular services between Bridgnorth and Kidderminster

I invite you to join me at Vision & Verb where I talk about my interesting visits to Daniels Mill and share some of its history.

The workings of the mill were explained and demonstrated in great detail.  At the end of the tour, as if to order, a steam train chuffed its way across the viaduct.  This was a queue to visit Highley Station on the Severn Valley Railway.  A few minutes after getting there another train arrived to order giving me the perfect photo opportunity.

I won’t mention the large slice of coffee cake I had for lunch, because I am on a diet!  Nor that I rather stupidly left my camera at home, luckily my phone takes pictures.