Costumes and film from the 1934 Shropshire Historical Pageant are on show free in Ludlow until 18 December. Closed Thursdays, open Saturday mornings.

An exhibition of costumes, film and memorabilia from the 1934 Shropshire Historical Pageant has opened at Shropshire Museums’ Collections Centre in Ludlow, and it runs until Friday 18 December 2026. Admission is free, with donations welcome. (Shropshire Council, New exhibition brings Ludlow’s spectacular 1934 pageant back to life, 11 August 2026)

The practical details

Ludlow: The Pageant is in the Lower Gallery at the Collections Centre, 7-9 Parkway, Ludlow SY8 2PG, which shares its building with Ludlow Library in the town centre. The phone number is 01743 250505. (Shropshire Museums, Collections Centre: getting here)

The council gives the opening hours as Monday to Wednesday and Friday, 9.30am to 5pm, and Saturdays 9.30am to 1pm. It is closed on Thursdays, which is the detail most likely to catch out anyone driving over from Shrewsbury, Bridgnorth or the Marches for the day. Saturday visitors get three and a half hours, not a full day.

What is actually on show

The exhibition covers the Shropshire Historical Pageant and Comus Tercentenary celebrations of 1934, held to mark 300 years since Milton’s masque Comus was performed at Ludlow Castle. Visitors can see costumes worn by performers in the 1934 productions, ephemera from the celebrations, and original film footage shot at the castle.

The scale of the original event is the thing worth going for. On the council’s account, more than 2,000 costumes were made, hundreds of performers appeared as figures from Shropshire’s past, and the pageant ran over six days in the summer of 1934 to audiences of around 4,000 people a day, drawing visitors from across the country. It was a retelling of more than 1,500 years of local history staged by people from across county society, from lords and ladies to schoolchildren.

Timeline: 1634, Milton's masque Comus performed at Ludlow Castle; 1934, the Shropshire Historical Pageant and Comus Tercentenary runs six days with more than 2,000 costumes and audiences of about 4,000 a day; 2026, Ludlow: The Pageant exhibition opens and runs to 18 December

Alex Wagner, Shropshire Council’s portfolio holder for culture, said the exhibition “shines a light on a unique moment in Shropshire’s history, when the Ludlow community came together to celebrate their heritage through creativity, performance and civic pride”.

Why Comus and why Ludlow

Comus is a masque, a form of staged musical drama, written by John Milton in 1634 and, on the council’s account, written for a performance at Ludlow Castle. It is regarded as one of Milton’s significant early works. That local origin is why Ludlow, rather than anywhere else in the county, was the centre of the 1934 tercentenary, and why the surviving costumes and footage are held here.

What it means for you

It is free and it is in the town centre. There is no ticket to book. The Collections Centre is a short walk from Ludlow’s main streets and the castle itself, so it works as an add-on to a market day rather than a trip in its own right.

Check the day before you travel. Closed Thursdays, and Saturday closing is 1pm. Both are easy to miss if you assume normal museum hours.

It runs for four months. With a closing date of 18 December 2026 there is no rush, but school holidays and the run-up to Christmas are the busy windows.

There is more to see in the same building. The Collections Centre is a working store for Shropshire Museums’ collections as well as a gallery, with a research room available by appointment and behind-the-scenes store tours bookable through the museums service.

If you are planning a wider day out around it, our guide to things to do in Shropshire covers what else is open nearby.