During our recent holiday in the Welsh Borders we visited Ludlow Castle. Ludlow is such a pretty town and the Castle is the jewel in the crown. Ludlow has a rich history - both political and literary, and the two have often been intertwined.
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| Aerial view |
In the 16th and 17th centuries Ludlow Castle was home to Sir Philip Sidney and his sister Mary, the Countess of Pembroke; the dramatist Philip Massinger, and the poet Thomas Carew. The Metaphysical poet Lord Herbert of Chirbury lived at Ludlow Castle, as did Samuel Butler. Butler wrote part of his satirical work Hudibras at Ludlow Castle.
The Castle inspired many poems, often in the Romantic tradition. Elizabeth Bigley Chadwick's poem On Leaving Tarporley (1828) extols the beauty of the Welsh Marches and Ludlow Castle:
Now where the green sod with florets interwove.
Marks out the spacious hall, the grand saloon
Where magic beauty led the mazy dance;
The chambers too where Monarchy reposed,
Owls, bats and reptiles claim as their abode;
Where stood the beds of state enfringed with gold,
High canopied the beds of nettles spring.
John Milton's Masque Comus was first performed at Ludlow Castle in 1634, on Michaelmas Night. Many poets and writers were drawn to Ludlow as a result of this performance (as indeed was I). One of these poets wrote:
Here Milton sang
What needs a greater spell
To lure thee stranger
To these far-famed walls?
Daniel Defoe visited Ludlow in 1722 and noted that the Castle "is in the very Perfection of Decay". William Stukeley, JMW Turner and numerous other painters and antiquarians visited Ludlow and recorded their impressions of the town and Castle in print, paint and engravings.
