 Ludlow has featured in movies and TV programmes including Tom Sharpe's "Blott on the Landscape" and 90s TV adaptations of "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling" and "Moll Flanders".In Shakespeare's "Richard III", Ludlow is mentioned, as the place where the young Edward V is to be fetched as Richard III plots to seize the crown.The town is described as the capital of Wales following a zombie apocalypse in the novel World War Z.

Ludlow has connections with a number of figures in the arts – most notably, Alfred Edward Housman, poet and author of "A Shropshire Lad" (his ashes were buried in the graveyard of St Laurence's Church and were marked by a cherry tree).