Ludlow’s Crimean Cannon

By the castle entrance stands a cannon captured in 1855 during the Crimean War after the siege of Sevastopol, Russia’s main naval base.

It is one of more than 1,100 pieces of Russian ordnance brought back as trophies from the conflict by the victorious British and their allies. While more valuable items were offered to senior figures and military and naval towns, some of the iron guns were offered to any towns on application. Other guns were melted down for various uses including providing metal for the new order of valour, the Victoria Cross.
On Saturday 21st November 1857 the cannon arrived at Ludlow station. It was reported that a vast number of people visited the station anxious to get a glimpse of ‘this great trophy of national valour’. It was initially placed in Castle Square but was considered a hindrance to commerce and soon removed to its present site outside the castle.
The Russian Imperial two-headed eagle is embossed on the gun’s barrel and circular inscriptions, on each side of the barrel, give details of its manufacture. One identifies it as a 24-pounder frigate gun, weighing 2 tons and cast in 1799. The other, in Cyrillic letters, reads ALKSND ZVD for the Alexander Foundry in Petrozavodsk, North of St Petersburg and D. GASKOIN, the foundry’s director, Charles Gascoigne. A Yorkshireman and a leading ironmaster of his day, Gascoigne was noted for his pioneering naval gun designs produced by his foundry in Falkirk. In 1786 he was appointed by the Empress, Catherine the Great, to modernise the foundries in Petrozavodsk. He went on to pursue a brilliant career in Russian service for the remainder of his life.
Crimean guns were also awarded to Leominster, Bridgnorth and Hereford, but Ludlow’s was the only one to escape the zeal for the collection of ‘scrap metal’ during WWII.
On Saturdays and Sundays from Saturday 1st April guided town tours will start from the cannon at 2.30pm.

Article supplied by Mortimer History Society