Food for thought at Ludlow spring festival

The Ludlow Spring Festival, a pre-cursor to the main event in September, celebrated its 10th birthday with stalls and attractions over three days.

Some of Shropshire's very best food and drink producers took part in the festival with the emphasis on food and also beer.

There were about 50 breweries from Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and Wales who took along everything from milds to stouts for a meet the brewer evening on Friday.

On Saturday and Sunday stalls were set up inside Ludlow castle and visitors also took part in three town trails, linking the event with the town centre.

Hannah Mackley, one of the organisers, said: "The idea is to encourage our visitors to go out and explore the town and see the wonderful range of food sold in Ludlow. We had a pie trail, a pudding trail and a gin trail and hope that it helped generate business in Ludlow."

She said there was also a new section within the castle, a gin and jazz bar, and also a cocktail mixology event.

"We have been very busy and have enjoyed perfect weather," Hannah said.

"Now we are looking forward to the Ludlow food festival from September 13-15. It will be the 25th anniversary of the event and we hope it will be bigger and better than ever."

The weekend also included talks, children's activities and cookery classes and a pub stage with live music.

Ludlow police said they were forced to break into a car parked in the town to rescue a pair of dogs trapped inside.

A tannoy message was put out at the festival to try and contact the owner of the car but after a while the officer at the scene decided that in the best interests of the health of the animals the window had to be forced. The animals were showing signs of distress, police said.

Sometime after, the owner of the car returned and was given strong words of advice.