Horse Parade in Ludlow will remember the First World War next week

Horses from Ludlow Hunt will parade from Ludford Bridge to the castle passing along Lower Broad Street and Broad Street.

On arrival there will be a special service to which the town is invited in the grounds of Ludlow Castle.

It will be conducted by Canon Jeffry Wilcox, a former town councillor and deputy mayor, with readings by the current mayor Paul Draper and Niall Walsh, the chairman of Ludlow Hunt.

The event is one of a series of commemorations of The Great War that will take place between now and 1918.

It was a war that was to change many lives and an aspect that had a particular impact in rural areas was the requisition of horses to support the war effort on the Western front.

This was a time when there was still mounted cavalry but most horses were used to haul equipment and the breed that suffered most were the powerful Clydesdale horses that were favoured for pulling guns.

The army was allowed to take the horses that it needed at a time when they had vital work to do on the farm causing massive hardship.

It was to help make up for this that the Government started to provide support to farmers in acquiring mechanical tractors that were to largely take over from horsepower.

As a consequence farming and the British countryside was never the same again and although shire horses continued in ever decreasing numbers for many years the age of mechanised agriculture was born.

For many it was a hugely distressing time as people on farms not only lost horses they needed for work but also animals that they had come to know and love.

Nearly 500,000 horses died in the First World War and there was no happy ending for those that survived.

Few were ever returned and although a few found new lives on the continent a large number that had served their country ended up on the butcher’s slab.

The Ludlow Horse Parade is on Sunday, July 26 starting at Ludford Bridge at 3.30pm and with the service in the castle grounds at about 3.45pm.