Monday
By train to Ludlow. All three trains ran on time which might be a first. My forward facing reserved seat on GWR from Reading to Newport (South Wales) turned out to be neither forward facing nor indeed reserved. Fortunately the train wasn’t too busy. Lots of people waiting at Newport on the station platform, I hope they’re not all getting on the train to Ludlow. OK, just stand around the door to the toilets and pile your luggage against it then dickheads. No trouble getting a seat on the train in the end. Transport For Wales having all the announcements in Welsh then repeated in English makes for double the noise pollution.
Wedi sylwi. Wedi sôn. Wedi setlo.
The slightly bewildered looking man across the aisle had a transparent G4S branded backpack and was travelling on a Rail Warrant. I guessed he was just out of gaol. I was right. His welcome back to the world outside included being unable to buy a coffee from the refreshments trolley because “it’s card only, we don’t take cash for security reasons”. I suspect that excuse isn’t strictly true. Also in a world where cash may not be accepted should perhaps the prison service provide part of the discharge grant on a pre-loaded card rather than just an envelope of cash? I stepped off the train at Ludlow to find that although it was a little cooler it was still very humid.
It wasn’t far to the Feathers Hotel but the last bit was uphill.
The Feathers is very old and a bit of a labyrinth inside, very characterful but you feel like you should leave a trail of chalk marks to find your way back out from your room. It was a nice room mind you, with a fine view of the car park and a good selection of teabags. I unpacked and chilled for a bit then set out to explore Ludlow and find some food.
Ludlow is very photogenic. There are so many half timbered buildings, including the Feathers Hotel which has an ornate frontage constructed in 1619 over an earlier core building - which explains the higgledy-piggledy nature of the interior. There are narrow streets with Tudor buildings, also wide streets with Georgian fronted buildings, and a wide market place in front of a Norman castle. In the centre of town it would be easier to count the buildings which don’t have blue plaques provided by the Ludlow Civic Society! Ludlow contains more than 420 listed buildings, nine of them Grade I and 25 of them Grade II*
It is also quite hilly, especially if you walk down to the River Teme and back as I did. There’s a nice walk along the far side of the river between Dinham Bridge and Ludford Bridge with views of the castle and town. Just enough distance to build up an appetite.
I dined at Pietro Lounge, a modern cafe bar located on the Market Place in what used to be The George pub. A pint of Henry Weston’s Vintage Cider and a very tasty Nasi Goreng set me back £15.40 and though it did not occur to me at the time I think maybe they forgot to charge for the cider. Maybe it was some happy hour deal, I was certainly happy 😀.
I went to walk some of it off around the outside of Ludlow Castle and then through the streets and little lanes of Ludlow. I stopped for a hydration break at the Church Inn and sat in the beer garden which is actually part of St. Laurence’s churchyard. This proved to be a bit of an error. The church bells immediately commenced with a bloody loud and largely tuneless peal. It was lovely when they stopped. Trouble is after a pause they started again. And again. And again. I don’t know if they were ringing them or throwing them down the stairs and carrying them back up again - hence the pauses. I retreated to my room at the Feathers and slept like the proverbial log.
Tuesday
On Tuesday morning I spent a couple of hours exploring Ludlow Castle. £10 admission is very reasonable these days considering there’s quite a lot of castle here. There are a lot of ruined nooks and crannies to explore, also many uneven steps. Ninety-six of these will take you to the very top of the Great Tower where you can see a lot of Shropshire because obviously that’s why the Norman occupiers built it here.
Judging by the number of dismembered pigeons scattered about the castle I don’t think that the local raptors are going hungry. A round tower stands isolated in the middle of the bailey, the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene, the ground floor of which is set out with rows of chairs beneath a wooden roof. Nearly every woman who walked in said “Oh look you can get married here!” Which caused some worried expressions on the faces of some of the men 😁
Despite the proliferation of uneven surfaces it was on a wide level modern set of stairs that a little old lady went down like a sack of hammers, first drawing a small crowd and then much running back and forth by the castle staff. She stayed down for a worrying amount of time but eventually was able to sit up at least. An ambulance was sent for 😟
I completed a couple of circuits of the castle ruins and then sat on a bench between the castle and the market. You could tell that it was lunchtime even with your eyes closed from the number of folk with pungent takeaways. I noticed that Ludlow is very well provided for when it comes to benches to sit on, other towns should take note. An ambulance arrived at the castle, I estimate that it must have been about an hour since the fall down the steps.
I walked down to Mill Gate and the adjacent weir on the River Teme then back up into the town centre. Looking around inside St. Laurence’s church I found that they have the mechanism for a carillon on display although since 1989 a computer controlled electro-mechanical version has been used instead. I assume that wasn’t what was ringing the bells last night unless the computer had crashed.
What else to do on a Tuesday afternoon in Ludlow. All that walking around had made me thirsty. I found the Rose and Crown tucked away in a courtyard between the cheese shop and the pottery shop in Church Street. A Joule’s Brewery pub, not familiar to me so having tried a pint of very nice Blonde at only £3.90 I decided it would be remiss of me not to try the Pale as well (£3.80). From my window seat overlooking the courtyard I watched several groups stop and look at the pub, and a couple of times they came through the door, looked around, and then walked out again. I’m not sure what they were expecting to find. Not a traditional wood panelled pub interior with a large range of drinks obviously. I resisted the temptation of a third pint, went back to my room at the Feathers to chill and read for a bit until it was time for dinner again. Since it had been good before I went to the Pietro Lounge once more, I can recommend the Mediterranean grill washed down with a pint of Murphy’s if you're hungry.
After dinner I walked down Linney and across the fields to Burway, crossing the River Corve first on a footbridge in the fields then again at Corve Bridge and back up Corve Street past more half-timbered buildings, almshouses, the cemetery, and Tesco to The Feathers where I retired to my room to watch YouTube. Using the Pipe Pipe app because I’m not a masochist.
Around midnight there was an unfamiliar sound drifting in through the window from outside. It was actually raining.
Wednesday
I had time to kill after checking out of hotel so got a Tesco sandwich and had a last wander around Ludlow. I went through the cemetery and up Linney, which was much harder than it had been walking down it. The sun was out, last night’s rain had dried, it was still humid. My phone said "20 degrees, feels like 25, 67% humidity". I returned to the station in good time to catch the train to Hereford.
The train was showing as “delayed due to overcrowding”! This did not bode well.
When it eventually arrived it wasn’t actually crowded. Also it was a real train with a locomotive 67 010 at the front drawing 5 carriages! Alas the sort of carriages with sod all legroom between the seats so just as well it was only a 25 minute journey.
I arrived in the ’ford. I’ve not been back since I think 2014. They’ve had the builders in, I stepped out of the station and didn’t recognise anything.
I killed time before I could check in to The Green Dragon hotel sitting by Elgar and his bike trying to book something on the Open House London site. Failed, by the time the site loaded what I wanted to visit (BT Tower) was fully booked 😡 By the way Elgar is the only cyclist in Hereford who obeys the signs saying to dismount when passing through Cathedral Green.
At The Green Dragon. Quickest check in ever, key issued (actual real key) and in my room in about a minute from walking through the front door. So all the multiple emails saying check in online (having first registered an account on a third party website? - no thanks) to “save time” was bollocks. Single room, recently decorated. Ideal for an overnight stay. It must be over 20 years since I last stayed here, I had a bigger room then but my little brother was the manager at the time.
The new shopping development on the old Cattle Market site has hollowed out the city centre a bit as I expected when I came here not long after it opened. Many empty shops now, my former go to cafe, The Matabeau, is long gone. Plenty of barbers and nail/eyebrow bars of course. Money has to be laundered somewhere.
Food service seems to stop at 3pm in the pubs in Hereford - again the Cattle Market development has the usual chain restaurants present. Co-incidence? The Imperial had no cask ales on either, what is the world coming to? I gave up and I resorted to a quick Burger King before walking to the concert venue, The Courtyard Theatre, or rather the big tent surrounded by people in hi-vis in the car park behind the Courtyard Theatre. This trip away initially started off as just a plan to come to Hereford to see Elkie Brooks in concert, I expanded it to include Ludlow afterwards. Ticket scanned and passed through the cordon of tabard-wearing stewards with a little more than an hour before the show start time. The Stowford Press was £5 a can and if you wanted a re-useable plastic “tankard” they’d be happy sell you one. I observed that it was mostly only the women who felt the need for a glass.
Elkie Brooks is amazing live. What a voice and a talent that she’s been honing longer than I’ve been alive. Lots of classics were performed especially from the Pearls album. But also covers including Jimi Hendrix (with an anecdote about him chatting her up in the Speakeasy club in London), Prince (Purple Rain), and Rag’n’Bone Man (Human). Elkie can hold a note for a very long time. Also there was more jumping about on stage (in heels!) than you might expect of an eighty-one year old. The crowd went wild, or as wild as a big tent full of geriatrics gets. My advice would be if you get the opportunity to see Elkie Brooks live grab it while you still can, you won’t regret it.
After a couple of very enjoyable hours we were discharged through the waiting “chuggers” into a night which was much cooler but not quite chilly. I considered going to see if the Black Lion was still open but in the end settled for another Stowford Press in the hotel bar.
I was woken in the night by some machine, possibly an a/c unit on another building being very loud and then again later by loud dripping water sounds outside somewhere echoing in the space between the hotel and the adjacent building. I had to close the window in the end, not ideal.
Thursday
I got up, checked the trains. Oh dear. I went to the station and got the 1036 to Newport which actually arrived in Hereford at 1150 and reached Newport at 1236. If I’d waited for the 1208 as originally planned no way would I have made my 1304 connection.
From Newport to Reading I had a seat reservation again, carriage H seat 09. The train arrived, it comprised carriages A to E. GWR is a bloody joke.
I had 6 minutes scheduled for the connection at Reading, if I missed it I’d be hanging around for an hour at least. I came off the train from Newport like Mick The Miller out of the traps. Made the connection with a couple of minutes to spare. The Giant Suitcase Cult were much in evidence on the train home, making their way to the temple at Gatwick. A woman with two large suitcases she couldn't control, couldn’t find anywhere to stow, and was trying to manoeuvre without her phone leaving her hand. Must be the high priestess. Or a blithering idiot 🙄
Home at last and I didn’t even get wet walking back from the station 😀
Lots of photos on Flickr, mostly of Ludlow. Opens in a new page or as a slide show below if your viewer supports it.
