The Market House stands on sixteen oak columns in the middle of the High Street, an open arcade below and a timber-framed hall above. It was begun in 1617 and reputedly took fifty-one years to finish. Twice-weekly markets still trade under it, on the arcaded ground floor, under rules that go back to the reign of Elizabeth I.
The rest of the High Street lives up to it: a run of 17th-century black-and-white timber buildings, and a concentration of independent shops that most towns this size gave up on decades ago. There's a chocolate shop and tea room that makes its own chocolate and takes bookings for workshops, and a zero-waste deli where you refill your own pantry and cosmetics. The Ledbury delicatessen carries meats, cheeses, smoked fish, homemade tarts and frozen meals, and stocks award-winning Peter Cooks Bread. Of the two butchers, D. T. Wallers & Sons is on the Homend doing sausages, pies and game, while LDA Meats has been at it for nearly a hundred years.
Off the High Street, a cobbled medieval alley called Church Lane runs down to the church between jettied timber buildings. One TripAdvisor visitor called it "a beautiful pedestrianised medieval street." It is said to be among the most photographed streets in the country, and it has turned up in a good many films.
Halfway down it is the Prince of Wales, tucked in the alley with no beer garden and no obvious need for one. It's a 15th-century free house that often pours seven real ales and eight ciders, many from local mills, and holds folk jam sessions on Wednesday evenings. It was Herefordshire CAMRA Pub of the Year in 2013. Drinkers describe the ale as served "in perfect condition." Sunday roasts are worth booking.
On the High Street proper, the Feathers Hotel occupies a striking black-and-white coaching inn dating to around 1560, its AA Rosette restaurant much praised. The 16th-century Talbot on New Street has an oak-panelled dining room with a Civil War bullet still lodged in the wall — a souvenir of Prince Rupert's rout of Colonel Massey's Roundheads in 1645.
Church Lane ends at St Michael and All Angels, which Pevsner called the "premier parish church in Herefordshire." Its bell tower stands apart from the church, one of only seven detached towers in the county, reportedly because a stream under the church made the west-end foundations too weak to carry it. The octagonal spire was added in 1732.
The Malvern Hills rise as a ridge on the eastern skyline, and the walking heads straight for them: a 13.7km loop past Eastnor Castle's deer park, or a longer route up through Coneygree Wood to the Iron Age hillfort at Herefordshire Beacon. Trains from Ledbury station run on the Cotswold Line to Hereford, Worcester, Birmingham and London Paddington; the A449 and A417 pass through, and the M50 lies to the south.
The poet John Masefield was born here in 1878 and later called Ledbury his "Paradise." He grew up to be Poet Laureate, and the town still holds a poetry festival every year in his shadow.