Bromfield, Mill and Church 1892

Artists

Groups of artists would visit in summer and stay at The Feathers Hotel.  After breakfast they would choose their locations, some at the church, some at the castle, others would be in the middle of Broad Street.  They would set up their stools and easels and stay there all day (except for lunch of course!). There was very little traffic in 1955. One wonderful afternoon, I was invited to join them and I was able to draw the mud & wattle buildings with charcoal.  At the age of 13, it was a great honour to be included in this wonderful group of people.

Does anyone remember Miss Grayfoot?  She was head-mistress of Ludlow Girls Grammar School during the fifties.  She retired around 1956 and later I heard she had died and was buried honourably beneath the first flagstone in front of the Ludlow church's altar.  We girls all loved her.  It was she who taught our theology as well as architecture found on churches in both England and overseas.

Those were wonderful days.  I lived at The Feathers Hotel where my parents were managers for a couple of years.  My best friend in school there was Judith Hollings.  She said her sister was learning Swahili!  I had never heard of such a language.  At eighteen, I was hired by a family to be Nanny to their two children in Tanganyika, East Africa.  I learned Swahili within six months!!

Dinham Weir

The Ludlow weirs were navigation Flash Lock weirs until the railways came to the Teme valley. Sailing Trows from the Severn worked up the river with wheat for the mills from Gloucester returning with flour for the villages and iron bar from Downton for blacksmiths downstream. An 1820's painting shows the old Dinham Bridge with four square rigged trows unloading at Dinham Mill now Mr Underwoods lovely restaurant and other trows at the opposite bank and under full sail up to the Downton Gorge.

Custodian of the Castle

Andrew CORDEN, a widowed and retired police constable, became the Custodian or Warden of Ludlow Castle before 1871. He was still taking care of it when he died in 1879 on Dinham at the age of 74.

Did he live in a house on Dinham that came with the job? Which house might this have been? Are there any records of this position?

Andrew was my great great great Grandfather . . .

Mandy Sutton

schooldays

I went to the High School in Ludlow from 1941 - 49 and then went back to teach there in about 1956. I had a flat in Broad Street just below where this picture stops and used to go to this church of St Laurence on a very regular basis- they were wonderful days. I ran the Guides and also re-started the Sea Ranger Crew with a boat on the Teme.Ludlow was very different then as the old town hall was standing: I had such a shock when I visited years later and discovered it had gone. If only it had been replaced by a small park and flowerbeds instead of a car park it would have improved the town! I went out to Kenya in 1959 but I look upon Ludlow as my spiritual home.