Ludlow Museum Gallery 2: History of Ludlow

In this gallery we turn back the clock and look at some of the most important periods, events and people that have shaped the town of Ludlow.

• The 20th Century: pageant and warfare
• The Victorians: trade and costume
• The Georgians and a view of Ludlow
• Civil War defence
• Tudor building techniques
• Medieval Ludlow: Castle and Church

The town of Ludlow dates back to the 1080s when the Normans began their castle

In more recent times the castle was the site of the 1934 Ludlow pageant, and some of the costumes are among our first displays in this gallery. The impact of the two wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45 on Ludlow are also explored. At the outbreak of the First World War many young men from Ludlow and the surrounding villages patriotically enlisted. Of these, over 70 either fell in action or died of their wounds.

Edwardian and Victorian trade, fashions and people, form the next part of our story as well as the arrival of the railways in the town, linking it to Shrewsbury and Hereford during the 1850s.

A map of Georgian Ludlow as it could have appeared in 1768, created by local research, is available for the visitor to explore and the gallery continues further back in time to look at finds from the Civil War in the 1640s and beyond that the religious house of Ludlow and the castle.

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