Englishman's Castle Was His Home

THE CASTLE, LUDLOW was Alfred McLaughlin's truly impressive address. For four years starting in 1875 he was a lodger in Castle House (above), the only habitable part of Ludlow Castle. It had been the residence of William Urwick (1798-1870), a solicitor portrayed left, and Ann (1813-87) whom he married in 1851. Ann was the only daughter of Commander Theophilus Salwey RN (1773-1838) and Mary (1781-1846), the daughter and heiress of Thomas Davies, who lived in Ashley Moor, Herefordshire, as did Theophilus.

After William died, Ann stayed on at the castle with their only child, Mary Letitia (1855-1905), whom Alfred married in 1879. The picture below shows the wedding guests in the castle grounds with Ann Urwick in the centre wearing a crinoline, beautiful but two decades behind the fashion. Standing behind her is the Very Reverend Hubert McLaughlin, and standing beside him is his son the bridegroom with his seated bride.

Later the newly-weds moved to lodgings in a bricklayer's house at Clewer near Windsor. Ann was looking after their ten-month-old daughter in 1881, the year before Alfred graduated from Cambridge. Ann remained in the castle until her death in 1887.

The eleventh century Ludlow Castle came into the possession of Roger Mortimer by his marriage to Joanna de Geneville in 1306. With his mistress, Isabella, the Queen of my ancestor King Edward II, Roger forced her husband to abdicate in favor of their son, Edward III.

Ludlow Castle later passed to Roger de Mortimer, 4th Earl of March. Mary Letitia was a descendant of the Earl's daughter, Lady Anne Mortimer, through Richard Salwey, MP, 1615-85, Cromwell's Ambassador to the Sultan.

With the death of the last male Mortimer, Edmund, 5th Earl, in 1425, the castle went to his sister's son Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. His son acceded to the throne as Edward IV in 1461, so Ludlow Castle became Crown property.

After 1669 it was abandoned. The castle was the picturesque ruin shown below even in 1811 when the Earl of Powis bought it from the Crown. But an inn had been built into the curtain wall. The Earl converted it into a residence and named it Castle House, recently restored.

© 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
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