Ludlow
Ludlow in Shropshire is one of the finest medieval planned towns in England and one of the most food-celebrated market towns in Britain, a settlement of exceptional architectural quality whose combination of the great ruined castle, the medieval grid street plan, the magnificent church of St Laurence and the reputation for outstanding local food creates one of the most rewarding small town visits in the Welsh Marches. The Ludlow Food Festival, held annually since 1995, has established the town as the culinary capital of the Marches.
The castle at Ludlow, built in the late eleventh century as the principal Norman stronghold of the Welsh Marches, has one of the most complex and most historically rich castle histories in England, its buildings spanning six centuries. The round Norman chapel within the castle, one of only a few surviving round-nave Norman churches in England, is the most architecturally unusual feature.
The Church of St Laurence, one of the largest and most impressive Perpendicular Gothic churches in the Marches, provides the ecclesiastical centrepiece of a town whose medieval prosperity left an architectural legacy of considerable quality in every main street and alleyway.