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One leading British food magazine called Ludlow "The UK's Best Place to Eat", putting it ahead of big city competitors London, which placed second, and Edinburgh, which was third.
Certainly the rabbit pie from Ludlow market is the best in England, by our vote. Baked in bunny-decorated pastry
in a sauce of Perry, the local Shropshire cider, the meat is plentiful, tender and gamey. We are comforted by the the pie purveyor's explanation that Thumper was a happy, free-ranging fellow all his life, and that not a speck of his fluffy little body was wasted.
We try rabbit brawn set in pig trotter jelly, then a terrine of "potted pig" made with pigs' cheeks. It's unbelievably tasty, and the pigs are treated as well as the rabbits, we're assured. Our travelling vegetarian reports the lentil and eggplant moussaka sold by another stall holder at Ludlow market is equally superb.
We've come to Ludlow in search of the Best Town in England. Tucked away in the southern Shropshire hills near the Welsh border, Ludlow is a rural market town not on the beaten tourist track for most Kiwi visitors. But, on top of the foodie honours, a Visit Britain newsletter says Ludlow was voted "Best Town in England 2007", which is enough to get us there.
It turns out there was poetic licence in that statement. Certainly Ludlow was deemed the UK's Best Place to Eat by the BBC's Olive magazine last year.
Some time last century, poet John Betjeman called Ludlow "the loveliest town in England". The New York Times has called a local pub, The Feathers, "the most handsome inn in the world". And Hobsons Brewery in the nearby village of Cleobury Mortimer produced the Champion Beer of Britain 2007, according to the Great British Beer Festival.
And if the national tourism authority decides that all adds up to Ludlow being the Best Town in England, who are we to disagree?
Postcard-pretty, idyllic as a Turner painting (he did in fact paint the view to Ludlow Castle), Ludlow sits atop a hill on an elbow bend on the river Teme. We drive into town through the last remaining tunnel-like gateway in the medieval town wall. Built in the late 1200s, sections of the wall are still intact around the town. Along the geometrically laid-out streets (perhaps that's what the Academy of Urbanism liked so much) with names such as The Bullring, Buttercross, Fish Street, Bell Lane, Harp Lane and Pepper Lane, are bakers, butchers, corner shops, well-patronised pubs and lace-curtained tearooms. Half-timbered Tudor houses shoulder each other for attention, while classically solid Georgian buildings and Victorian mansions stand aloof. In Ludlow there are more than 500 listed buildings, which are registered and protected by law.
On top of the hill is the 1000-year-old castle - as romantic a ruin as you will ever see when viewed on a mist-shrouded morning with rooks circling the tower.
In keeping with Ludlow's love of prize-giving, the castle website calls it "the finest of medieval ruined castles". And back in 1722, Daniel Defoe is said to have described Ludlow Castle as "the very perfection of decay".
But Ludlow does not rest on its historic laurels. It is a busy market town, now best known for its gourmet food festival and its arts festival. It is the British headquarters of the Slow Food Movement, and the whole town and surrounding farmland is dedicated to the production of fresh, natural, homemade wholefoods. Eggs are not just free-range here, they are very free-range, according to a farm gate sign.
The townsfolk take their locally produced food so seriously Tesco faced a public outcry when it tried to open a supermarket in Ludlow.
But is it the Best Town in England? Rye in the south east and Bibury in the Cotswolds might think themselves worthy of the title, but I bet they don't make rabbit pie as tasty as Ludlow's.
- Detours, HoS