Towns along the Powys border will be featuring in one of the most popular BBC programmes next week.
"World-class" elephant-inspired Bishop's Castle's art trail March of the Elephants will be shown on Escape to the Country; a long-running series which helps prospective buyers find their dream home in the countryside.
The programme which will be shown on television at 3pm on Tuesday, February 13, will see presenter Sonali Shah help an ambitious young couple from the West Midlands with a budget of £400,000 find a renovation project and a couple of acres of land in the Welsh Borders.
Sonali also heads to Hay-on-Wye to meet a couple who escaped London in 2022 and are in the process of transforming a Grade II-listed building into their new home.
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Bishop's Castle has earned a reputation for its colourful murals and artworks placed around the picturesque town including a standing elephant painted on the side of a building near the Town Hall.
The name ‘March of the Elephants’ is a play on the Shropshire Marches and celebrates the town’s long association with the elephant.
During the 18th Century, Bishop’s Castle was home to Clive of India, whose role in organising British colonial rule in the south Asian country has been mired by controversy, and his coat of arms features an Indian elephant.
During the Second World War several circuses moved their animals out of the cities to Bishop’s Castle to avoid air raids. Elephants were kept in stables behind where lies The Castle Hotel car park. The last remaining stone stable is now The Elephant Gatehouse.
Escape to the Country recently paid tribute to the late TV presenter Jonnie Irwin after his death aged 50 which was announced last Friday. He had been a host on the British daytime property-buying programme since 2010.
In 2022 Jonnie disclosed that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2020 and it had spread to his brain.
Tuesday's episode - which can be viewed on BBC iPlayer shortly after broadcast - is the 32 episode in the current 24th series of the show.
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