We were meant to go to Hay-on-Wye for a couple of days but
couldn’t get booked in anywhere, so I looked at the map and spotted Ludlow. There
were two things I knew about Ludlow – one, it has a castle and two, it has a
reputation for good food. I thought we might as well give it a go just for the
food.
Getting to Ludlow requires a bit of a trek on the A roads as
there is no direct motorway route to the area.
So after having a pit stop in Whitchurch, we continued on the A49,
zooming past Shrewsbury and onto Ludlow.
It seemed to take forever, but our patience was rewarded with a nice
cottage in a lovely country town.
We’d booked a cottage called Bromley Court for a couple of
nights. It was a mini cottage as the
building had been split into two apartments of sorts. Our apartment had a kitchenette and lounge,
with stairs to a roomy bedroom and bathroom.
It had low beams and as we’re both tall we had to be careful not to
knock ourselves out. The kitchenette
didn’t have a cooker, but had everything else so you could make sandwiches and drinks,
and the owner of the apartment supplied a continental breakfast which was very
handy. It had on-street parking outside
and made a great base to explore Ludlow and Shropshire. It was really good that we could have cottage
style accommodation without having to book it for a full week. Our favourite things about the place were the
owner’s two cats. Ceefer, a big black
cat, was very friendly towards us and allowed us to stroke him. Ellie, the female cat, was shyer but very
cute and didn’t get on well with Ceefer.
Ludlow is rather hilly, but I should have guessed this
beforehand as it has a castle and they are normally built on hills. We had to practically hike up the hill to get
to the town centre as it was that steep.
The town itself is a rather lovely country town with lots of “oldie
worldie” buildings you would expect to find in that chocolate box version of
England. Lots of black and white
buildings and a hodgepodge of architectural styles which shows the evolution of
the town. Every nook and cranny of this
town is packed full of places to explore.
You do have to be careful not to get hit by a car though as the
pavements are narrow and often it’s easier to walk on the roads.
There are plenty of little independent shops in Ludlow and I
was particularly pleased to find Abode, an interior design retailer. It sells lots of lovely items for the home
and most importantly is an Annie Sloan’s paint stockist, so I was able to stock
up on paint for a DIY project. Just off
the main street Neil managed to find a record shop called Mod Lang in a side
alley. They stocked lots of second hand
vinyl records and to say Neil was in his element was an understatement. I lost him for about an hour as he worked his
way through the 7” singles.
There are plenty of pubs to try out in Ludlow. Some of them are fancy, with equally fancy
prices. Others cater for the passing tourist
trade. The Rose and Crown is a lovely
little place tucked away in a little courtyard. Bizarrely one pub called Ye
Olde Bull Ring Tavern holds a bingo night on Sunday nights for the locals. I’ve never seen a pub so full and yet so
quiet that you could hear a pin drop. We
had to practically whisper our order to the bar person. Thankfully there was a beer garden out the
back, so we could at least talk to each other.
The weekend we were in Ludlow was the final weekend of the
Ludlow Fringe Festival. Part of the festival
was a folk event at Ludlow Castle and there were rumours that Robert Plant, yes
the same one who sang with the rock behemoth Led Zeppelin, was guesting at the
festival. However after listening to
some of the music you could hear outside the castle walls, we knew this wasn’t
the kind of festival for us. Folk music
certainly isn’t for me – having been forced to go to a folk gig in the 1990s by
friends – I could not be persuaded to go.
It did turn out that he made a guest appearance at the festival, about 10.50pm
when quite a few of the festival goers had left to relieve their
babysitters. At this point we had gone
to the Church Inn for last orders. Still
there was no amount of drink you could have given me to sit through the 5 hours
of folk music preceding his appearance.
Ludlow on a Saturday night is a genteel affair, with older
people frequenting the pubs, and teenagers drinking and chatting with friends
outside the castle walls. A group of
teenage girls joined up with a group of lads and they shamelessly told them “we
weren’t going to talk to you if you didn’t have wine”. At one point there was a bit of drama when a
middle aged lady in floods of tears was escorted from the folk festival by her
friends. Apparently she was upset over
her divorce. Another older gentlemen was
complaining to his companion that he felt “obsolete”. This was better than an episode of Eastenders
- well most things are these days.
We went to two food places in
Ludlow – The Church Inn and Chang Thai.
The Church Inn specialises in pies, so Neil was rather excited about
this prospect. They did a wide selection
of pies, but by the time we ordered, many of the pies had sold out. In the end what we had was fine, but we were
disappointed their pies were of the puff pastry lid variety. We’ve been spoilt in the past with full
pastry pies from the likes of Pieminister, so puff pastry lid pies no longer
cut it for us. On the other hand the
Chang Thai was a delightful experience and we enjoyed their food
thoroughly. I find Thai food a safe
option these days as you can’t go too badly wrong with it.
Obviously we checked out all the
charity shops and I was pleased to find out this middle class town wasn’t
ashamed of them. The town had developed
a charity shop trail complete with map.
Neil didn’t find any vinyl records to his tastes in the charity shops,
but that was fine as he’d found lots in the record shop. The good thing to note about Ludlow is that
most of the charity shops are open on Sunday too. Visiting towns on a Sunday can be a hit and
miss affair with shop openings, but on the whole Ludlow is open.
We were genuinely surprised to
find out how lovely Ludlow was and were pleased with our accommodation too. There is plenty on offer in this town and the
surrounding areas. It’s worth checking
out what’s on at the art centre or when the next festival is on, as they have
lots of different events throughout the year.
It’s great to see the locals are really passionate about this town and work
hard to keep the place interesting and vibrant. We’ll definitely come back
again.