Ludford, Herefordshire

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Ludford
Herefordshire, Shropshire

The view from St Giles churchyard,
showing St Giles Hospital and The Old Bell
Location
Grid reference: SO511739
Location: 52°21’40"N, 2°43’5"W
Data
Population: 673  (2011[1])
Post town: Ludlow
Postcode: SY8
Dialling code: 01584
Local Government
Council: Shropshire
Parliamentary
constituency: 		Ludlow

Ludford is a small village and parish in northern Herefordshire. The parish is situated adjacent to the market town of Ludlow in Shropshire to the north and extends into that county to the east.

The village is situated on the south bank of the River Teme, which here forms the county border, and is connected to Ludlow on the north bank by the Grade-I-listed Ludford Bridge.[2] The village is geologically notable with its Ludford Corner.

History and geography

The view north across the Teme from the eastern part of Ludford village, with the skyline of Ludlow dominated by St Laurence's Church.

Etymology

The place name means the ford at the loud waters ("lud"); Ludlow's name means the hill ("low") by the loud waters.[3] The loud waters are those of the River Teme, which flow rapidly through the area (now largely tamed by weirs).

Domesday Book

Ludford,[4] Steventon,[5] and the Sheet[6] are all mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as manors. They existed prior to the town of Ludlow, which grew up during or after the construction of the Norman castle there.

Battle of Ludford Bridge

During the Wars of the Roses, a minor battle was fought at Ludford in 1459, which became known as the Battle of Ludford Bridge.

Ludford House

The village contains a former country house – Ludford House[7] – and the remains of its parkland. It originated as the area's manor house and was acquired in 1607 by the Charlton family. Sir Job Charlton, speaker of the House of Commons, was created a baronet in 1686. The Charlton baronetcy however has since become extinct. By the 1840s the parkland (Ludford Park) had become enclosed and used as farmland.[8]

Roads

The turnpike road to Hereford, now the B4361 (named Overton Road in Ludford), was built through the parkland of Ludford House in the 1820s and passes right by the back of the House.[9] Ludford House is no longer one residence and has been divided into separate dwellings. Park Road, no longer a through-road, was once the main thoroughfare leading southwards from the ford, and later the bridge, and was until 1836 the main route to Worcester,[8] running via Steventon. Whitcliffe Road begins at the B4361 in the centre of Ludford, heads across Whitcliffe Common towards Mortimer Forest, and runs eventually to Wigmore.

Cycle route 44

National Cycle Network route 44 runs through the area, avoiding the main roads.

Civil parish

The civil parish of Ludford (which now covers a slightly different area than the ecclesiastical parish) runs along the south and east boundaries of Ludlow and includes the settlements of Ludford, the Sheet, Foldgate, Rocks Green and Steventon. It is divided by the River Teme into two-halves (with no way to cross the river within the parish boundaries, since the 19th century closure of the ancient road and ford to Steventon). The parish council meets outwith the parish, in Ludlow.

Looking downstream from Ludford Bridge at the Horseshoe Weir. The former ford was just below where the weir now is, roughly where the river turns slightly to the left. The part of Ludlow on the north bank just beyond the ford remained part of the civil parish of Ludford until 1901.

Holdgate Fee (or Holdgate's Fee) was a small part of the parish on the north side of the Teme which remained as a practical enclave (it continued the parish north across the river, but with no regular means of access without passing through Ludlow) within Ludlow's parish from c. 1200. Ludlow's parish was established upon land mostly from Stanton Lacy, but also with some from Ludford (which had extended in a north-east direction from the village, crossing the ford). Holdgate Fee was a rectangular plot of land located at the foot of Old Street, on the east side of the street, near the site of the former ford. The name came about as for a long period it was an estate in land (a fee) belonging to the manor of Steventon, which in turn was owned by the lordship of Castle Holdgate.[10] Common with the other parts of Ludford's parish that lay north of the Teme, it belonged to Shropshire and the hundred of Culvestan, later Munslow.

The lower stretch of Old Street (below Old Gate) became known as Holdgate Fee, as the fee (the estate owned by Holdgate) encompasses other land in the area, not just the Ludford enclave. Today the street is Old Street for its entire length, the former fee commemorated on the west side of the street by blocks of housing named Upper Fee and Lower Fee. The Ludford Parish Rooms were located at Holdgate Fee.[10]

Elan aqueduct

The Elan aqueduct passes through the parish, largely in tunnel, and crosses the Teme by way of a bridge near Steventon.

Bridge

Viewed from downstream and the Ludlow side, Ludford Bridge, which now takes the B4361 road across the River Teme. The large public house, the Charlton Arms, is just behind.

Ludford Bridge is a three-arch Grade-I-listed[11] masonry bridge crossing the Teme immediately north of the village of Ludford. It is also a scheduled ancient monument.[12] Built in the 15th century, replacing an earlier bridge possibly built by Josce de Dinan, it was restored in 1886 (following a serious flood) and has 20th-century modifications on the north (Ludlow) end.[2] The bridge gives its name to the 1459 Battle of Ludford Bridge, which took place to its south in Ludford.

The bridge is located upstream of the original ford which gave Ludford its name, which was located at the bottom of Ludlow's Old Street, continuing that ancient road across the river into Ludford (at what became Ludford Mill) joining Park Lane. This ancient route then carried on in a south-easterly direction towards Tenbury and Worcester via another fording of the Teme at Steventon. The part of the route from Park Lane to Steventon is no longer in existence.

Looking over the bridge towards Ludlow's Lower Broad Street and St Laurence's church; the B4361 heads right after the bridge.

On the Ludlow side, the bridge is located at the foot of Lower Broad Street, though the B4361 route runs instead along Temeside and then Old Street.

Several weirs have been built on the Teme around Ludlow, including the Horseshoe Weir which is immediately downstream (east) of Ludford Bridge. The disused Ludford Mill (for milling corn) used the water gradient of this weir.

St Catherine's Chapel existed in the mediæval era on the Ludford end of the bridge, on the west side.[13]

The bridge continues to be an important crossing point over the river, linking the centre of Ludlow with Ludford and places to the south and south-west of the town, including the town's livestock market. Until the opening of the Ludlow by-pass in 1979, the A49 road used the bridge (the B4361 through Ludlow and Ludford was then the A49). Vehicular traffic over the bridge is restricted to one direction at a time, and the two-way traffic of the road is controlled by traffic lights on both sides. Pedestrian refuges exist above the cutwaters between the arches.

Geology

Ludford Corner

Ludford contains the world-renowned fossil site known as Ludford Corner, where the Ludlow bone beds can be viewed. It is situated in the centre of the village, at the junction of the B4361 ('Overton Road') and the road to Wigmore ('Ludford Lane' or 'Whitcliffe Road'). Being adjacent to the highway, it is can be readily viewed by the public.[14]

In 1832 Dr Thomas Lloyd, a Ludlow doctor and amateur geologist, met Roderick Murchison at Ludford Corner to study the rocks exposed along the River Teme and on Whitcliffe, advancing Murchison's theory for a Silurian System that he was to publish in 1839.[15] Immediately above the topmost layer of the marine rock sequence forming Murchison's Silurian period was a thin layer of dark sand containing numerous remains of early fish, especially their scales, along with plant debris, spores and microscopic mites. In contrast to the underlying sediments of the Ludlow Series which were deposited in a shallow warm sea some 400 million years ago, the Ludlow Bone Bed represents terrestrial (land) conditions and thus a fundamental change in the landscape. At the time, this was believed to be the earliest occurrence of life on land. Murchison thus took the Ludlow Bone Bed as the base of his Devonian Period, although over a century later this boundary was to be moved a little higher, the overlying rocks being ascribed to the Pridoli. The science of geology has taken a number of local names from these studies and now applies them worldwide, in recognition of the importance of this area to scientific understanding, for example Ludlow Series and Whitcliffe Formation. The site is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest and still attracts international studies.[16]

The geological period of the Ludfordian stage (part of the Ludlow epoch) is named after the village.

St Giles church

There is an Anglican parish church, dedicated to Saint Giles, with its own small churchyard, which is situated at the centre of the village.[17] It is a Grade-II* listed building with origins in the 11th century,[18][19] when it was a chapel of Bromfield Priory.

Public houses

The Charlton Arms

The Charlton Arms is a historic public house, situated by Ludford Bridge, now also a restaurant and hotel.[20] It was formerly called the Red Lion[21] but is now named for the Charlton baronets, whose seat was Ludford House, of which the first baronet was speaker of the House of Commons. The building was significantly extended in the late 2000s.

There was a coaching inn located on Park Road (until the early 19th century an important coaching thoroughfare on the road to Worcester) called the Bell Inn, now a private house.[8] The name (and the huge bell used as a pub sign) was transferred to a pub on Lower Broad Street just on the other side of the river.

References

  1. ↑ "Civil Parish population 2011". http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadKeyFigures.do?a=7&b=11126154&c=Ludford&d=16&e=62&g=6486531&i=1001x1003x1032x1004&m=0&r=1&s=1448712129644&enc=1. Retrieved 28 November 2015. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 British Listed Buildings Ludford Bridge
  3. ↑ Poulton-Smith, Anthony (2009) Shropshire Place Names p 87
  4. ↑ Open Domesday Ludford
  5. ↑ Open Domesday Steventon
  6. ↑ Open Domesday The Sheet
  7. ↑ Geograph Ludford House, Ludford
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Ludford Parish Plan (2004) p 18
  9. ↑ Geograph Ludford House
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Ludford Parish Plan". 2004. p. 19. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140714171202/http://www.2shrop.net/live/images/cme_resources/Groups/gCF68E832-6295-42BC-A16D-50BD2B68A787/Ludford-Village-Plan.pdf. 
  11. ↑ National Heritage List 1281983: Ludford Bridge (Grade I listing)
  12. ↑ National Heritage List 1003012: Ludford Bridge
  13. ↑ Shropshire History
  14. ↑ DEFRA Ludlow Corner
  15. ↑ "Why Shropshire's geology is important". http://www.shropshiregeology.org.uk/sgspublications/Why%20Shropshire%20is%20important.htm. Retrieved 26 February 2012. 
  16. ↑ "International Subcommission on Silurian Stratigraphy meeting at Ludlow". http://www.shropshiregeology.org.uk/sgspublications/Table%20of%20Contents%20Proceedings%20No_16.htm#Rosenbaum%20Ray%20Siluria%20Revisited. Retrieved 26 February 2012. 
  17. ↑ Ludford: St Giles – a church near you
  18. ↑ British Listed Buildings St Giles Ludford
  19. ↑ National Heritage List 1291747: Church of St Giles (Grade II* listing)
  20. ↑ The Charlton Arms
  21. ↑ Whatpub.com (CAMRA) Charlton Arms, Ludlow

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