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You may find the text below interesting to read if you are planning to stay in our holiday cottages.
Ludlow has provided hospitality through the ages. This has ranged from the inns and alehouses that provided refreshment for those who arrived at the early settlement in Ludlow to the present day holiday cottages, B & Bs and hotels which amply cater for the many visitors and holiday makers who arrive from all over the world. Ludlow has always been a prosperous town. Over the centuries many medieval towns withered away to become no more than agricultural villages, but in spite of some periods of relative stagnation, Ludlow has continued to thrive as a centre of trade and small scale industries such the wool trade, glove making, local breweries and as a town of resort. From the time when the ancient travellers came along the Corve Street track to the Tumulus at the top the hill, on which the present day St. Laurence's church now stands, to the travellers in the middle ages people travelled only when needed. When these early people arrived in the 11th century to find a Ludlow town plan in the making there must have been a feeling of safety in those unsettled times as so many stayed. The security of a fortified castle, town walls with gates together with the natural barriers of the rock face of Whitcliffe and the benefit of the River Teme and the River Corve on three sides all added to peoples feelings of relative safety and for unexplained reasons this feeling still presides today. As with all market towns where generations of families have handed down folklore and stories it is not unusual that the Ludlow's ghosts have remained as tales for the telling on a cold winters night when you are safely indoors. War has of course visited Ludlow with the Rout of Ludford Bridge in the Wars of the Roses and the eventual royal ownership of the title to Ludlow Castle so making it the capital of the Marches and Wales for a few hundred years. It was during this time in 1634 that Milton staged his "Comas" in Ludlow especially for the Earl of Bridgewater when he was its president in Ludlow Castle. Some later successful performances of this very same play, one performed in front of Princess Margaret in 1959, gave birth to the idea of having an annual play performed in Ludlow Castle this was how the Ludlow Festival began. There have been many Fairs and Festivals in the town centre market place over the centuries, some have evolved into weekly or fortnightly markets such as the 4 times a week regular markets the produce markets and the cattle markets, but the special ones are still held annually. These are the Food and Drink Festival, the Ludlow Festival, the Medieval Fayre and of course our May Fair a family pleasure fair. Ludlow's prosperity is reflected in the fine houses and public buildings of all periods. Many of the handsome frontages of houses in Ludlow are facades which have been applied to much earlier buildings and from one end of the town to the other the streets and buildings can tell you their own story, and what a story that is!
