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Welcome to the Ludlow Historical Research Group

The Ludlow Historical Research Group is an active historical society, founded in 1976, with a vibrant membership and a very well respected programme of research and publishing.

We are based in the historic market town of Ludlow which lies in the county of Shropshire, just a few miles from the Welsh border. Indeed the majestic castle is a constant reminder of times when the border was not as peaceful as it is today, and when Wales and the border counties were administered from here rather than from Westminster.

Ludlow is a planned Norman town and by the end of the 12th century a grid pattern of streets had been laid out which survive, virtually intact, to this day. These were flanked by burgage plots* to create a community with a thriving market at its core.

The burgage plots have influenced development of Ludlow right up to the present day, helped by enclosure from the medieval town wall and the limited damage during the Civil War.

Other parts of the town may have been settled slightly earlier, from the late Anglo-Saxon period. Connecting these settlements has been the north-south highway for long known as "Old Street", later to become the A49 trunk road between Shrewsbury and Hereford; this dates back to at least Roman times, its location hereabouts determined by the easternmost slab of exposed bedrock which could be forded across the River Teme. Earlier (Neolithic) settlements are likely to have been a mile or so further north, for which archaeological evidence exists on the gravel plain at Bromfield.

With the coming of the railway in 1852, Victorian expansion of the town developed to the east (Gravel Hill and East Hamlet); during the second half of the 20th Century new housing was constructed further east still, to fill the area enclosed by the Ludlow by-pass, opened in 1979.

* A burgage plot was big enough to build a home, have a workshop and grow sufficient vegetables to support the household. The size of a single plot was 2 poles by 18 poles (about 10 metres by 90 metres), set out by the then standard measure of a "pole" (= rod or perch, 16.5 feet).

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