13 Ludlow Stokesay Beeston

Black Prince Tour

Back to St David’s Cathedral, Dinefwr Castle & Arthur’s Stone

Day 13, Thursday 13th June 2013, Ludlow Castle, Stokesay Castle, Battle 1403 and Beeston Castle

Thursday the 13th was another day packed with historical awesomeness. After a delicious cooked breakfast at The Feathers hotel (named after the heraldic badge feathers of the Prince of Wales, as Ludlow is thought by some to be the gateway to Wales from England), we strolled up the street to Ludlow Castle, a fabulous medieval castle that was lived in by one of my favourite kings, Edward IV, growing up; plus Katherine of Aragon lived there with her first husband, Prince Arthur, Henry VIII’s older brother. Many features are well preserved, including some fine stonework inside the very unusual circular stone chapel situated in the inner ward as a separate building. The tower keep is fantastic, as are the Tudor apartments where Katherine lived, and where Arthur died.

After looking all over, we made our way north towards Stokesay Castle, a wonderfully well preserved medieval fortified manor house about 20 minutes north of Ludlow. This place gives a very authentic sense of what such places may have been like back in the day. It has a brilliant carved stone mantle piece in the formal living room above the main hall, and some apartments with some original glass in the windows. The small defensive tower was interesting as well. It’s an English Heritage property, and one of the staff there really put on the hard sell for us to buy a ‘group entry’ deal, which we weren’t interested in because we’d already been a member in 98-99 and seen most places. But she wouldn’t let up! It was quite funny, and we thought she must have been just one ticket sale away from winning the EH sales prize trip for a weekend to Ibiza. Most disappointed when we left ticketless.

Anyhoo we grabbed a lunch of apples in the carpark, then scooted north towards Beeston Castle. On the way though we spotted a place called Battle 1403, which is the site of the Battle of Shrewsbury of that date. They had a bit of a museum there, which had some excellent re-creations of the weapons, armour and clothing that would have been used in the fighting, plus a few actual relics. We also had a good walk around the battlefield itself, and down to the church that was built on the site of the main fighting soon after. Very interesting!

After a poke around in the shop, we continued north to Beeston Castle, situated on top of cliffs overlooking the Cheshire plains. It’s the perfect place for a castle, easy to defend with great views of all approaches. Mostly it’s in ruins now but it’s still a very atmospheric place. When we got there, only one other couple was there, but like at Arthur’s Stone, they left and we could soak up the loneliness and remoteness of the place all by ourselves. Rumour has it that somewhere in the ruins lies a hoard of buried treasure. Damned if we could find it, but we did have a bit of a poke around in the rocks :). On the walk back down the hill to the shop and car-park I dropped my sunnies somewhere, but it wasn’t’ a big deal because I’d scratched them earlier in the day when I accidentally dropped them at the servo. In the shop we got talking to the guy there who was very friendly, and we bought a little pewter knight, well, about 12cm high.

Then it was back into the BM and on to Chester. We drove straight into the town for a bit of a gander before going to the hotel. It was quite quiet, and we had a bit of a walk about, before deciding we should come back in the morning and have a look at the cathedral and the shops. I needed new sunnies, for one. So we went back on the road we came in on, to our hotel. The Green Bough was in the top few hotels of the whole trip, and we had some doozies. We’d been upgraded (again :D ) to a luxury room, and it was just beautiful. Immaculately furnished and appointed. We’d arranged to have dinner in the hotel, having decided the town was too far to walk back from, and we weren’t disappointed. It was stunning food and service, if anything even better than at the Royal Crescent, because it was just a bit more relaxed. We both had duck for mains, which was scrummy, complemented by a very decent rosé.

Ludlow Castle Stokesay Castle Beeston Castle

Stayed at

Green Bough Hotel, Chester

60 Hoole Road Chester

Map

Europe 2013

On to Chester Cathedral, Lyme Park & Lincoln Cathedral!

Ludlow

Stokesay

Battle 1403

Beeston

Chester