Ashlea Pool Lodges is a small country park hosting log cabins around a small but well stocked coarse fishing lake.

The cabin we hired was one of the older style lodges and had its own hot tub.  While we were on site they were installing some larger deluxe lodges which looked really luxurious.

I paid for a week’s fishing at the on-site general store, which has a nice range of items for sale – and there is a superstore a few miles away. 

The shop didn’t supply fishing bait at the time of our stay but that may have changed since.

The fishing was steady with some nice size roach and carp, but we experienced a couple of days of heavy rain / flash flood which bought a lot of water down from adjacent ponds and flooded the lake.

With my original peg now under water and probably 10 meters out in the lake, fishing did seem to slow down a little, although the new shallow edge and flooded lawn had its own benefits with one carp literally swimming up the grass and out of the water without me having to land it!

The site is exceedingly quiet except for the occasional train, which passed directly to the rear of our lodge a few meters behind the master bedroom.   This wasn’t a huge problem as they passed quite quickly.  There is a station just outside the park if you want to make use of the service.

The hot tub is well maintained and it’s a pleasure to sit outside under the dark skies and do some serious star gazing.   It isn’t often you get to see the milky way and it was quite spectacular, and if like me you live in a light pollution area, you will be shocked just how many stars are up there.  And with an official Dark Sky designated area close by, this destination is likely to satisfy any budding astronomers out there.

Ashlea Pool Country Park is located near Hopton Heath in Shropshire and is around 40 mins from Shrewsbury, and is a good base for touring the area, including Telford and Ironbridge Gorge.

Ashley Park is available through the Hoseason’s website.