Page 13 - LUDLOW TOWER AUG 21 (WEBSITE)_Neat

Saint Catherine's Chapel,

Ludford Bridge

Chapels on bridges were a common
feature in the Middle Ages, although
today only six remain in England. The

one which once stood on Ludford
Bridge is believed to date from the
thirteenth century.

The chapel, dedicated to Saint Catherine
of Alexandria, seems to have been very
small, standing in the triangular refuge on
the west side of the bridge, above the

northwesternmost pier. The chapel is (Image supplied by Shropshire Council,
first mentioned in 1407 and an anchorite Shropshire Museums)
- or hermit (one Thomas Shelve of
Leintwardine, known as 'Thomas the was described in 1740 as 'a little house'
Hermit') was in residence there in 1410. on the western side of Ludford Bridge.

It is mentioned by the sixteenth century Reckoned to have been demolished circa
antiquarian John Leland in his Itinerary: 1770, nothing remains of the chapel as
"There be iii. fayre arches in this bridge over such, but the bridge itself is Grade I
Temde, and a praty chapple apon it of St. listed.
Catherine". Presumably it survived the This coloured print of an engraving by
Battle of Ludford Bridge in 1459 when Henry Bryan Ziegler of the northeast
Lancastrian forces invested and later view from Whitcliffe, does seem to show

sacked the town, although the bridge 'a little house' in the right location, even
itself needed to be rebuilt after the though this view would have been
battle. sketched at least half a century after the

By the seventeenth century it had supposed date of the chapel's
ceased to be a place of worship. It is demolition.
recorded as still standing in 1722 and Nick Ford

Ludford Bridge today

13