Restoration of Gone to Earth to be shown in London Film Festival

From the London Film Festival website:

Long overshadowed within Powell and Pressburger's canon, this major new restoration reveals the visual splendour and dramatic intensity of one of their most misunderstood films.

Powell and Pressburger’s passionate Technicolor melodrama stars Jennifer Jones as the free-spirited Hazel, who refuses to be bound either by her clergyman husband or the predatory squire who pursues her. 

The untamed Shropshire landscape is at one with Hazel’s primal spirit, making this one of the filmmakers' most rhapsodic odes to the English countryside and among their most intoxicatingly sensual achievements.

The showing of Gone to Earth is on Wednesday 7 October (6pm) at the National Film Theatre.

Learning to love Ludlow (without a memory card)

I got on better with Ludlow today. In the past I've not always loved it as much as I should - I think this dates back to the time that the tourist information centre told me off for not booking accommodation before I came to the town.

But today I arrived with the firm intention of finding and photographing a rather unLudlowlike building on the edge of town, and that gave me a sense of purpose beyond wandering about the centre waiting to be smitten. 

I fulfilled that intention, even though I found I had set off without a memory card in my camera. (Thank you, phone.)

I'll show you the building I hunted down on another day, but here is a little bit of typical Ludlow to enjoy.

Looking down on Clun's parched bowling green from the castle

I've been to Clun today, making use of one of the last workings of the 745 bus from Minsterley to Ludlow. It's going to be replaced by a community transport scheme that sounds as though it may even be better for residents, but it will no longer be possible to get to Clun, as I did today, by catching the early bus from Shrewsbury to Minsterley.

Anyway, here's a souvenir of Clun and of this extraordinary summer. It's taken from the castle mound looking down on the town's bowling green, though 'green' isn't quite the word at present. 

It seems to be a Shropshire thing to have bowling greens on old castle sites. There is one at the top of what remains of Bishop's Castle castle, and the other day I found one in Ellesmere too. In fact, it was seeing the bowling green that awoke me to the fact that I was looking the remains of a castle.

Bridgnorth's New Market Hall is on the Victorian Society's list of endangered buildings

The Victorian Society has named its list of the Top Ten Endangered Buildings for 2026, reports Herald Wales. Perhaps the most striking structure included is the Tees Transporter Bridge, Middlesbrough, but my eye was also struck by the presence of Bridgnorth's New Market Hall.

The revised Shropshire Pevsner is honest about it:

Of 1855-6, the magnum opus of a local man, Robert Griffiths of Quatford. In the grossest Italianate with an angle tower with typical Victorian-Italian roof. The material is yellow brick, blue brick and red brick. For Pevsner the whole seemed artless and tasteless, though not over decorated. Yet for all its bombast it fits well into the varied fabric of the town, and the tower tells in the town silhouette as a minor accent midway between the major ones of the two churches. (In practical terms the Market Hall was a failure. When it opened traders refused to move in, and still today the Saturday market takes place in the High Street.

Ludlow had a similarly uncompromising Victorian market hall - it was demolished in 1986, shortly after scenes from the BBC's adaptation of Tom Sharpe's Blott on the Landscape were filmed there. Its loss opened up a welcome space in front of the castle entrance, now used as a market space, but I wonder if the town would be quite so gung-ho about razing it now.

Anyway, Griff Rhys Jones in in no doubt the we should prevent the loss of Bridgnorth's hall:

"No, no, no. Come on. They are building huge enclosed shopping centres which threaten the high street, and here is a purpose made building on the high street standing by and perfect for small shops, cafes and a new life.

"This is the centre of town. This is the centre of urban life. Stand by and make something of it."

Ludlow market stallholder spends donkey's years raising £190,000 for equine charity – selling footstools and false teeth

Our Headline of the Day Award goes to one of its regular recipients: the Shropshire Star.

This gives me an excuse for linking to one of my favourite stories from last year – the one about the pet donkey who strayed from home and was later found living as the head of a herd of elk.

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"Gill and Farage remained close. When the latter quit UKIP in December 2018, Gill followed him two days later. In the following February Farage announced his new Brexit Party. Gill was one of six former UKIP MEPs to join immediately." Angus Young traces the journey of Nathan Gill, former leader of Reform UK in Wales, from Hull to Moscow.

Jo Elvin writes about her experience of applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain: "It took the Home Office four weeks to come back to me and tell my application had been rejected. I was informed of this in a short, cold letter stating that they were not satisfied that our marriage was genuine. The last sentence of the letter told me I had four weeks to get my affairs in order and vacate the country for good."

Owen Sennett finds that YouTubers are earning up to £20,000 a month by making provocative videos that have targeted a Norfolk hotel used to house asylum seekers.

"In 1981, the tide turned for Lethbridge when she was able to return to the bar. 'It seemed like the end of a nightmare – it had been 20 years in which I couldn’t work in the profession I loved. It turned out a lot had changed while I’d been away. I was astonished: there were black faces, and women, in chambers. I couldn’t believe it – it was wonderful.'" Joanna Moorhead talks to the magnificent Nemone Lethbridge.

"Edge-of seat perils, Bond-style gadgetry, a dash of espionage, a villain both hissable and hilarious, and Tracy Island: the coolest playground in the world with its movable swimming pool and lift-and-slide rocket entries. What kid didn't love all that?" Mark Braxton on his lifelong engagement with Thunderbirds.

lachlansimages visits Ludlow on market day.

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"I’m more interested in what the stratospheric rise of a person like Charlie Kirk says about the state of political discourse. He was in many ways representative of a type that has come to dominate the internet’s ‘infotainment’ ecosystem in recent years. His purported renown among a section of the youth probably explains the urge among certain mainstream newscasters to conjure away the nasty bits. They too desperately want to be down with the kids." James Bloodworth on the meaning of Charlie Kirk.

European Powell claims that Labour’s "reckless data-centre dash" will gut the planet, fleece the public –and leave only noise, heat and hollow promises.

"As so often in higher education policy, it seems as though the context and focus of these comments is the industrial value of the sciences (engineering departments are mentioned). Yet the wider implication is worrying: much of what is published in humanities departments is 'unfunded' research in the sense that there is no designated external grant money attached to it." Jeremy Noel-Tod is concerned by the president of Universities UK's condemnation of "hobbyist research that's unfunded".

Sandra Laville reports on the disappearance of bus services in Shropshire: "The city of Birmingham lies just over 40 miles north-east of Ludlow, but to the 10,000 residents of the quiet Shropshire town, it may as well be on the moon."

Yasmin van der Poel introduces us to the Red Vicar of Thaxted: "Conrad Noel, a Christian Socialist, was appointed vicar of Thaxted in 1910. He fused Anglo-Catholic ritual with radical politics, transforming his parish into a sanctuary of spirit-inspired rebellion. His sermons, described in a question in Parliament as ‘sedition’, championed Irish independence, workers’ rights, and land reform."

"I know the NHS is under strain and imperfect, and I’m aware that it was my good luck to find myself at St Thomas’s. But while I was waiting to be sent home on Sunday, the doctor in charge of intensive care at the hospital walked past on his rounds. I told him that while it had been in most respects the worst week of my life, it had also been among the richest. I’d been given an unexpected opportunity to experience and be grateful for human relationships in public service – comradeship among workers, empathy for strangers – at their best. Something I’ll never forget." Richard Williams experiences a sudden health crisis and thinks about the NHS and rhythm.

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"Why did this person decide to open a home in my ward? Well, there is a lot of evidence around now that these are not people with altruistic ideas, they don’t want to change the lives of a frightened young girl, they don’t want to change society. What drives many people to move into this area of activity is pure simple greed. They see the opportunity to make money out of other people’s suffering." Richard Kemp says making profits from the needs of SEND children should be illegal.

Bill Wyman itemises without mercy the many mistakes that podcasters make: "Most podcasts begin with a few minutes of painful-to-listen-to impromptu banter amongst the hosts. I wish that they had a 'skip intro' button a la Netflix so folks could just get to the substance of the show. The solution to this is to think up something better to give listeners. This involves a thing called preparation."

Jo Jones, head of arts and museums at Leicester City Council, shares her thoughts on the city's reopened Jewry Wall Museum: "There’s ... a 90-metre interactive wall that covers the work of the pioneering archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, who led the excavations of the Jewry Wall site in the 1930s, as well the latest archaeological finds to be discovered in Leicester."

Andrea Ashworth published Once in a House on Fire, a a memoir of her working-class childhood in Manchester in the 1970s and 1980s, to universal acclaim in 1998. She has not published anything since, but Dave Haslam has tracked her down.

Steve Rose discusses the reasons behind the decline of pub food.

"The town later became home to Henry VII’s eldest son, Arthur, who lived there from the spring of 1493 until his death in April 1502. This, in the words of Ralph Griffiths, gave the town a 'unique profile among England’s provincial centres', and an importance far beyond its population of about 2,000." Simon Payling explains the importance of Ludlow.

Meeting told there's a risk Ludlow's town walls will collapse again

A length of Ludlow's medieval town walls collapsed 12 years ago and has never been repaired because the town council and the Diocese of Herefordshire cannot agree who is liable.

Now comes news that a meeting in the town has been told there is a risk of further collapse:

At the weekend the Ludlow Town Walls Trust told the meeting the wall extending from the collapsed section was "in a tenuous condition of stability". ...

The section still at risk, the meeting of about 80 people heard, was the part extending eastwards from the collapse to the rear of the Compasses Inn. 

According to that BBC News report, the parochial church council, which is part of the Diocese of Hereford, has said it plans to initiate legal proceedings for a judicial review and file a complaint of maladministration against Ludlow Town Council with the Local Government Ombudsman.

And BBC News has covered further developments today:

Ludlow Town Council said the ownership and responsibility for the walls were "complicated and contentious matters", but there was a clear path for progress.

It said it would take a full and active part, external in the work, on a no liability basis, and urged all other interested parties to discuss next steps.

The town council has named "water pressure in the subsoil, apparent degradation of the wall mortar and inadequate thickness of the masonry" among the causes of the collapse, which suggests it may attempt to sue some medieval cowboy builders.

The Making of Gone to Earth 3

With the world becoming a scarier place, it's time to return to the Shropshire hills and some more behind-the-scenes footage of the making of Gone to Earth. This is the Powell and Pressburger film adapted from the novel by Mary Webb.

This video starts with Cyril Cusack baptising Jennifer Jones at Lords Hill Chapel, which stands above the lead-mining village of Snailbeach on the Stiperstones. Later there are shots of David Farrar on his horse, Jones chatting to local children who are extras in the film, and of a horse race. When this appears in the film, Ludlow Castle is in the background.

If you want to know more about the Shropshire locations used in Gone to Earth, you could start at Reelstreets. Then you could explore the relevant material on The Powell & Pressburger Pages.

The immense industrial inclines of the Shropshire hills

The LeiceExplore crew have been to Shropshire! They explore the remains of the quarrying industry on top of Titterstone Clee - coal was mined up there too as recently as the second world war too.

A post on here from 2016 has a video on the line from Ludlow to these quarries and its inclines. It's well worth a look too.

Trust re-formed to fund repairs to Ludlow's town walls

In Ludlow last month I saw the failure, 12 years after a stretch collapsed, to repair its town walls as a metaphor for national malaise. (The photo above shows a section in a better state of repair.)

Now BBC News reports that the charitable trust that used to care for Ludlow's town walls is re-forming and will begin raising money to assist local authorities in carrying out the repairs:

"This blot on our landscape has been left unattended and it's now presenting a risk of further collapse," claimed Colin Richards, chair of the trust.

"What we're trying to do as a community is to come forward through the Ludlow Town Walls Trust to say look...we can help as a community."

Mr Richards was responsible for the wall for 24 years as a conservation officer with the former South Shropshire District Council.

The report also touches on the dispute over who is responsible for the upkeep of the walls:

The section of wall is owned by the Parish Church of St Laurence, Ludlow, as part of the Church of England estate.

However, responsibility for repair lies with Ludlow Town Council, according to the parish and Shropshire Council.

Ludlow Town Council has not responded to the BBC's request for comment, but earlier this year said it was still taking legal advice.

Bluesky: At last we have a serious alternative to Twitter

I caught the bus to Ludlow with every intention of taking lots of photos of the architecture, but didn't get the good weather I had imagined. Still, I did like this little industrial building near the station.

[image or embed]

— Jonathan Calder (@lordbonkers.bsky.social) Aug 19, 2024 at 22:20

Elon Musk's determination to ruin Twitter has led a lot of people to explore an alternative, Bluesky.

I've had an account there myself for a while - you can find it here - and have been making more use of it since I got back from holiday.

Not only is the atmosphere more pleasant on Bluesky, it is also proving a good way of increasing the readership of this blog.

Twitter used to be great for that, but over the past year or two the number of Liberal England readers has dropped noticeably. I suspect that's because the changes Musk has made to the Twitter algorithm mean that fewer people are seeing my tweets.

But one retweet from a journalist on Bluesky has made my post on the Tories and foreign money the most read one on here for months.

So it looks as thought we finally have a viable alternative to Twitter in the shape of Bluesky.

I shall stick around on Twitter, at least for a while, but a fair number of civilised people have already closed their accounts. (You can also find me on Instagram, incidentally.)

Ludlow wall's down and England's done

Twelve years ago, a section of Ludlow's medieval town wall collapsed. When I visited the town a couple of weeks ago I found that repairs have still not begun.

Andy Boddington reported at the start of this year that there has been a dispute over who is responsible for the repairs, You suspect that has been fought with such tenacity because no public authority has the money to fund the work if they cop for it.

Someone I knew in planning used to tell me that Ludlow was safe from insensitive development because it's one of the towns foreign dignitaries are taken to show them the best of England.

Now it seems we can't afford the upkeep of the place.

Ryanair bar UK couple from flying over passport tea stain

Our Headline of the Day Award sees a rare victory for the Ludlow & Tenbury Wells Advertiser, which has pictures of the stain.

The judges advise everyone to be careful when drinking tea as they don't mess about at East Midlands Airport.

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Andy Boddington, a Lib Dem councillor in Ludlow, explains why he won't be signing a petition on Gaza organised by a Shropshire resident: "How can you be a peace campaigner when you accuse people who won’t sign as having extreme views without knowing their views or reasons for not signing. Mr Robbins should withdraw his reckless attempt to name and shame councillors and to put them in danger. He should work towards peace in the Middle East not towards creating conflict in Shropshire."

"When I explained my situation to my manager, they said I had just two weeks off on full pay. After that, I’d get what is known as statutory sick pay from my employer, paid at just £109.40 a week. I could hardly believe it." After experiencing the financial blow that being diagnosed with cancer also brings, Danny Berry has joined the Safe Sick Pay campaign.

"The point is - there were no pro-slavery societies. People who wanted to carry on benefiting from slavery for as long as possible counseled delay and inaction - that was the only realistic course. It would not have been tenable for Dundas or any other public figure to argue in favour of slavery. In that sense, there are analogies with climate change." Jackie Kemp looks at the different ways the story of slavery is represented by Edinburgh's monuments."

Historic England considers Cornwall's under-researched queer literary history.

"Eight new villages were planned for the Forest, Kielder itself would be the largest - 'new village communities of estate workers, adequately and compactly housed, and enjoying a high standard of local amenities'." Municipal Dreams on a postwar experiment in rural housing.

Stephen Wagg likes Kenneth More far more as an actor than I do, but I still enjoyed his discussion of the sudden decline of More's career: "More ... received an offer from David Lean to play the lead in an adaptation of Richard Mason’s interracial romance novel, The Wind Cannot Read. He says he turned it down, unsure if the public would accept him in a 'Rupert Brooke-style' part; More later called this decision his biggest professional mistake."

Matthew Green to fight South Shropshire for the Lib Dems?

There's news of a possible replacement candidate for the Liberal Democrats in the South Shropshire constituency.

Matthew Green, who was Lib Dem for the largely identical Ludlow seat between 2001 and 2005, has tweeted saying he is being asked to stand and asking what people think. The response so far seems enthusiastic.

The unexpected vacancy has been caused by Chris Naylor's decision to stand down from the role for health reasons.

Anyway, it's an excuse for me to post another of my many pictures of the constituency.

Chris Naylor stands down as Lib Dem PPC for South Shropshire

There's disappointing news from Shropshire: Chris Naylor, the Lib Dem due to fight the South Shropshire constituency at the next election has stood down for health reasons.

The news comes in a blog post by Andy Boddington, and we wish Chris all the best for a full recovery.

Chris says:

"It’s a huge disappointment to have to step down as PPC due to health concerns, after nearly a year now as the South Shropshire Lib Dem Candidate. Sadly, my old cardiovascular problem has flared up again after nearly 10 years. However, having launched a new local Lib Dem branch in the Strettons, and delivered many thousands of leaflets, I’ll still be playing an active part – giving my all to win back South Shropshire.

"Meanwhile I’m delighted that since my news several strong new candidates have come forward and I understand the constituency party will be announcing our new PPC very soon. I’d like to take this opportunity to offer many thanks to colleagues for their kind support."

Bridgnorth borrows half a million so town cliff railway can reopen

The people of Bridgnorth have given their town council the go ahead to borrow half a million pound to fund repairs that will allow the town's cliff railway to reopen.

As a result of this funding for work on an unstable retaining wall, the railway is due to reopen later this month.

The vote in favour of the borrowing is a reflection of the fact that the cliff railway isn't just a tourist attraction. Because of Bridgnorth's unique geography - half the town lies on the banks on the Severn and half on an outcrop that overlooks it - it's a valuable amenity for residents too.

According to the town clerk Clare Turner, quoted by BBC News, the £500,000 will be repaid over 25 years and will cost residents an extra £8 each year.

Meanwhile, reports Andy Boddington, there is no sign that work to restore a stretch of Ludlow's medieval town wall that collapsed 11 years ago will begin any time soon.

Concert pianist elected chair of South Shropshire Lib Dems

The Shropshire Star has put up a paywall, so we go instead to the Ludlow & Tenbury Wells Advertiser:

A concert pianist who has been elected to chair the Liberal Democrats for the new South Shropshire constituency.

David Gaukroger, who has been chair of the Ludlow Town Lib Dems since 2011 and a former Cleobury Mortimer councillor, replaces Councillor Heather Kidd MBE. 

Mr Gaukroger is well known in South Shropshire for his recent Flanders and Swann concerts with tenor Kim Begley in Ludlow’s Assembly Rooms, and has just performed in ‘A Christmas Carol’, in aid of MND research. 

“After Helen Morgan MP’s by-election triumph in North Shropshire - and our two stunning recent council by-election wins here in Worfield, and in Alveley and Claverley - it’s clear voters across Shropshire are turning to the Lib Dems," he said.

"For too long the Conservatives have taken voters here for granted.”

“South Shropshire had a Lib Dem MP, Matthew Green just a few years ago. I’m sure that with our parliamentary candidate Chris Naylor - who lives in All Stretton, in the heart of the constituency - we’ll be winning South Shropshire back again soon.”

If that sounds overconfident, remember that the president of South Shropshire Conservatives recently said much the same thing:

The outcome of the Worfield by-election carries significant implications for the Conservative Party. It was one of the safest divisions in South Shropshire (formerly Ludlow). Losing there, with such a strong swing against and no impediments to the campaign goes further than the lessons from North Shropshire that there are no safe seats for the Conservatives in rural Britain.