The A4117 is a cross-country A-road, mostly in south Shropshire.
Route
The road starts at a roundabout on the A49Ludlow bypass. It heads east, crosses over a hill and then loses the B4364, which heads off to the left. The road then skirts the grounds of Henley Hall.
A range of hills now becomes visible in the distance and the road runs straight towards these, climbing gently to begin with but more steeply as it continues east. We climb into the Clee Hills, with a surprising number of buildings lining the road considering the gradient and the bleakness. The road passes to the south of Titterstone Clee Hill, the 3rd highest point in the county) and contours round Clee Hill itself, passing through the village of Cleehill, where the B4214 turns off southwards. On the far side of the village there is a viewpoint on the right, then with the road still climbing, we cross a cattle grid and run out onto open moorland.
Cleobury Mortimer
The summit of the road is soon reached and we start to descend gently. We soon cross another cattle grid to enter the village of Doddington, on the far side of which we bear to the right and descend Hopton Bank to reach Hopton Wafers at the bottom. We cross another hill – a low one this time compared to Clee Hill – and reach Cleobury Mortimer, where we run along the town's gently twisting main street, complete with shops, historic hostelries and the church of St Mary the Virgin, which boasts a gently twisted spire.
On the far side of town we cross the River Rea and then bear sharply right, with the B4363 towards Bridgnorth turning left on the corner. After meeting the B4201 which trails in from the left and soon after the B4202 on the right, we enter the Wyre Forest and then move into Worcestershire. The route is no longer lined by trees (although they are visible away from the road) but we go through the village of Far Forest and then reach Fingerpost, which is presumably named after a road sign that no longer exists. We end here at a T-junction on the A456.
History
On classification in 1922 the B4364 started on the A49 in the centre of Ludlow and headed northeastwards to its current southern end, with the B4200 carrying on from there to Fingerpost. All this became the A4117 in the mid-1920s. The road was later truncated at its western end with the construction of the Ludlow bypass.