A report by John Ellison

One has to be very careful about what one says in the TS sometimes; an indiscreet mention of AH resulted in the present writer being saddled with the writing up of Summermoot. One might as well be in the army; there they used to call that sort of thing, "being put on fatigue".

The Bull Ring Tavern from the Bull Ring The Bull Ring Tavern where the Friday Innmoot took place

The Bull Ring Tavern where the Friday Innmoot took place.

The difficulty involved in reporting on this year's Summermoot lies in the unsensational success of the event; the only downside lay in the weather, which was damp and overcast for most of the weekend. I seem to hear Bilbo's voice speaking, however "Rain and drizzle at Ludlow on July the twelfth; there was no need to come back to report that".

The Merchants House

The Merchants House.

It would make more exciting reading to be able to record an attack on one Company by wolves from the Welsh Marches, and that Andy Armstrong and Richard Crawshaw had repelled them with fire and a storm of arrows. But nothing of the kind happened. I arrived at seven pm on Friday evening, Annie having joined me at Oxford. It turned out that everyone was staying in two adjacent B&B's close to the middle of the town - Malcx and Richard and Chris Crawshaw joined us for an informal Innmoot, and on Saturday morning Helen and Andy Armstrong appeared to complete the party. After elevenses we divided up, Annie and I to spend a couple of hours in one of the most splendid churches in England; my copy of Pevsner's Buildings of England kept on trying to escape, and it is only due to Annie's vigilance that I still have it in my possession. The rest of us went round the Castle, also one of the best in the country; we met again for lunch, and a tour of the 15th century "Merchants House", a remarkable half-timbered building with its internal paneling, and decoration beautifully restored and preserved.

Ludlow Castle from the gateway

Ludlow Castle from the gateway.

And so the rest of the weekend passed in a pleasant round of second-hand bookshops, further wanderings about Ludlow, and, as Bertie Wooster would put it, "excellent browsing and slucing". By the time that Annie and I had gone round the Castle, on the Sunday morning, we had each amassed a sizable portfolio of photographs. The weekend finished with a capital lunch, (The Mikado, if you didn't recognise the quote), after which we dispersed in our several directions as we had come.

And as we left Ludlow, the sun came out ...!

First published in Amon Hen 153, September 1998.

Larger versions of the images are available here.

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