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When you are thinking about places to stay in Ludlow you are spoilt for accommodation. You can choose from a wide variety, hotels, bed and breakfast and self catering. Increasingly people are choosing self catering because of the flexibility it allows visitors and the value for money it offers. There is self catering accommodation to suit all budgets and a wide variety of places to stay in from a castle to a modern house. For some time, we have been running a self catering business in Ludlow offering accommodation in cottages, Horseshoe Cottage and Paul Pry, and a modern house Waterside, which as its name suggests has superb views of the River Teme. What we have done in all our holiday properties is to create places where we would want to stay. If it is not good enough for us then it is not good enough for our guests and we have found this to be a winning formula.

When we first started, our first holiday rental was Horseshoe Cottage. It was the place where I lived as a child and it still holds many happy memories for me. It was owned by my parents from 1948 and so has been in the family for more than 60 years. (On three occasions my father was Mayor of Ludlow.) The cottage, started life as a stables for the larger house a little lower down the lane and was converted to cottages in the late 1700s. It was literally a 2 room house then with a room downstairs and one upstairs. Sometime in the early 1800s, an extension was added to the back creating two more rooms. If you go into the attic there is a timber structure going back to the 1600s. In the sitting room is a curved wall which, if viewed from the garden, was the outer wall originally of the large entrance that lead to the stables. Over the years we have made a lot of changes to the cottage, re wiring, new heating system and more recently enlarging the bathroom. But, what has been done to the cottage has been done sympathetically to retain its character. It is literally a 2 minute walk to the Ludlow town centre so you could not be much closer. However, unlike some other town centre accommodation it is not on a through road but on a quiet back lane. Also, unlike most other town centre self catering cottages it has its own private garden.

Our second cottage, Paul Pry, is located in Lower Broad Street one of the town’s most desirable locations. It is below the town’s only surviving medieval town gate, Broadgate. The cottage contains a wealth of history which in many ways reflects that of Ludlow itself. In the dining room is a medieval stone wall and in the sitting room and first floor bedroom is the complete frame of the side of a timber framed building that dates back to late 1500s/early 1600s. Timber framed buildings were built flat on the ground and the joints marked so that they could be assembled on site. You can still these marks on the timbers which were cut into the timbers with a chisel. When we restored the cottage we left in place, between the sitting room and dining room, some of the original oak slats used to make the wattle. The front of the house was built in about 1770 and it became one of Ludlow’s many inns in the 1800s. In the 1830s it was called Paul Pry a name we have kept. (Paul Pry was a famous Victorian play.) Like Horseshoe it is close to the centre. Both our cottages have their own parking so you can safely leave your car and enjoy exploring Ludlow’s many attractions like the Ludlow Food Festival, whether you are a serious foodie or someone who just appreciates good food and drink, there's more than enough at our festival to ensure that you, and your friends and family, have a great time. There's a wonderful festival atmosphere - and you'll certainly be able to taste the difference.