A genteel gatehouse

The Broad Gate, Ludlow, Shropshire The home of Sir Keith and Lady Thomas A 13th-century fortification that defined medieval Ludlow has been transformed into a Georgian townhouse. John Goodall examines its remarkable story and restoration

- John Goodall

AS darkness fell on October 12, 1459, during the dynastic struggle familiarly known as the Wars of the Roses, the Duke of York and his followers found themselves trapped by a royalist army just to the south of Ludlow. Hopelessly outnumbered, the Duke’s force ‘stole away’ at about midnight—by the contemptuous report of The Rolls of Parliament —‘leaving their standards and banners… and fled out of the town unarmed’. According to Gregory’s Chronicle, the triumphant royalist ‘gallants’ then poured into Ludlow and, having drunk their fill, ‘they full ungoodly smote out the heads of the pipes and hogsheads of wine, that men went wet-shod in wine, and then they robbed the town and bore away bedding, cloth and other stuff and defouled many women’.

Accounts of this brutal episode, known as the Rout of Ludford Bridge, offer no description of the town, but one surviving building must have figured prominently in the event. This is the medieval south gate of Ludlow, known as the Broad Gate, which overlooks the eponymous bridge of the rout. Certainly, it must have been through its narrow entrance passage—which still remains open to vehicular traffic today—that the fleeing Duke and the pursuing royalists entered Ludlow.