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Wren & Halloway · Ludlow · Established 1911

The same practice, four generations on.

A mixed veterinary practice in Ludlow since 1911 — small animals, farm and equine. Still owned by the vets who work in it, still covering its own nights, and with every fee printed on the wall of the waiting room and on this website.
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1911
Founded
Own vets
On call at night
Every fee
Published in full

What we do

Small animal practice

Dogs, cats, rabbits and the occasional tortoise. Consultations, vaccination, dentistry, soft-tissue and orthopaedic surgery, in-house laboratory and digital radiography — most results the same day rather than the same week.

Farm and equine

The half of the practice that came first. Herd health, fertility, lambing, TB testing and routine equine work across south Shropshire and the Marches, with a vet on the road from half past seven.

Our own out-of-hours

Nights, weekends and Christmas Day are covered by the same four vets you see in the daytime, from this building. You will not be sent forty miles to a call centre that has never met your animal.

What a full examination covers

Every consultation includes the whole of this, whatever you came in about. It takes about fifteen minutes and it is the part of the appointment that most often finds the thing you did not come in for.
  1. Four animals in five over the age of three have some degree of dental disease, and it is the single most under-treated problem we see. Every tooth is charted at the annual visit and you are shown the chart, because “his breath is a bit strong” is the thing owners most often mention two years too late.
  2. Ophthalmoscope and otoscope, both sides, every time. Ear disease is among the commonest reasons for an out-of-hours call to this practice, and nearly all of it begins as something a routine look would have caught while it was still cheap and easy to treat.
  3. The stethoscope goes over six positions, at rest, with the room quiet — which is why we ask you to stop talking for thirty seconds and why the radio in the consulting room is off. A murmur found early in a cat is the difference between managed heart disease and a crisis at four in the morning.
  4. Palpated standing rather than on the table: kidneys, bladder, spleen, loops of bowel, and the shape of the liver edge. In older cats this is where we most often find the kidney change that shapes the next five years of that animal’s care.
  5. Watched walking first, then each joint flexed by hand. Dogs conceal lameness extremely well and owners adapt to it so gradually that they stop seeing it, so we ask you to walk them across the car park rather than take your word for how they are moving.
  6. Weighed on the same set of scales every visit and scored one to nine by hand, because a number on its own tells you nothing about a greyhound or a bulldog. It is the least interesting figure on the chart and the one most closely tied to how long an animal lives.
Included in the £48 consultation. If we find something that needs longer, we will say so and book the time rather than rush it into the same appointment.

A short history

Four dates that explain why the practice works the way it does.
  1. 1911Alice Wren opens above the saddler’s on Corve Street. One vet, one horse, and a daybook that is still in the waiting room.
  2. 1948Small animal work overtakes farm work for the first time. The practice keeps both, which it has been advised to stop doing roughly once a decade since.
  3. 1987The present surgery is built on Temeside. The daybook moves with it, along with the brass plate from the old door.
  4. 2026Approached by a group for the fourth time, and declined for the fourth time. Still owned by the four vets who work here.

Owned by the people who examine your animal

Most veterinary practices in Britain are now part of a group, and many owners have no idea, because the name over the door does not change when the ownership does. We have been asked four times and have said no four times. It is not a criticism of the vets who work in those practices — they are our colleagues and often our friends. It is simply that when the person who sets the fees is also the person holding the stethoscope, a great many awkward conversations become straightforward.

Our fees, in full

A consultation is £48 for fifteen minutes and £72 for a double appointment, which we will suggest ourselves if the problem needs it. An annual health check with vaccination is £86 for a dog and £74 for a cat. Neutering starts at £145 for a cat and £280 for a dog, by weight. A dental scale and polish under anaesthetic starts at £320 including bloods. Farm visits are £62 to attend plus £58 an hour on the holding. Out-of-hours is £180 plus treatment, and that figure goes to this practice rather than to a third party. Every one of these is on the waiting-room wall in the same typeface as it is here, and none of them has ever been quoted differently over the telephone to somebody who sounded worried.
“They rang me at half past ten at night to say the bloods were back and she would be fine. It was Miriam, who had seen her that morning, not an answering service.”
Jean Corfield, Ludlow, client since 1994

Asked at the desk

  • No. Wren & Halloway has been independently owned since 1911 and is owned today by the four vets who work here. We have been approached four times and declined each time.
New clients welcome

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01584 872 310
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Our own vets on call every night · Ludlow, Shropshire