Ludlow: The Town and Church

On Monday of last week (December 10) Mathias had a day off. We boarded a train to Shrewsbury and continued on to the quaint little town of Ludlow. It's near the Welsh boarder and the countryside was absolutely beautiful on this cool, crisp but otherwise ideal day.

One of the places we visited was the church. It was full of wonderful ornamentation from various centuries...right down to a modern quilt in a plexi-glass enclosure which was spectacular. I, of course, fell immediately in love with the stained glass windows. The organ was being tuned. Christmas decorations were in place. The man greeting visitors was charming and suggested climbing the tower's narrow, spiral staircase. From here, we could see for miles.

This is one of the many bas reliefs on the ancient floor.

This is a view to the high vaulted ceiling in the tower.

Here's some stained glass. I particularly liked the small patrons at the bottom.

The ceilings above the choir and altar area were meticulously carved and painted.

From the top of the tower we could see the historic home that we also went to. It's the one on the corner, shaped like an "L", with the Tutor walls above the second floor and the bay windows.

Those bay windows included some gorgeous, German stained glass. Of course, the "guide" really wasn't helpful. He took our money and gave us the run of the place. There were carpets everywhere on sale. How these were suppose to sell to anyone remained a mystery...there were no exterior signs advertising them and one had to pay to enter the building.



Above is one of the nice, wooden paneled hallways.

One room had this decorative plaster ceiling.

The staircase was shaped like a giant "Y" on every level, with other century-old additional steps leading off the main section.

More stained glass....beautiful!



In the town, we walked past several shops like this one...

or this one!