One of south Shropshire’s best-known farmers, who was instrumental in creating the concept of the farm shop, has died at the age of 63.

George Lewis, of Priors Halton and the Orleton Farm Shop, was a former chairman of the Ludlow branch of the National Farmers Union and was also a former NFU county chairman.

Mr Lewis, who was also a councillor and founder member of Ludlow’s local produce market, died on February 4 after a long battle with cancer. Born into a family of dairy farmers in 1946, he lived at Priors Halton Farm all his life.

As a youngster he helped his father on the farm and they ran a milk round in Ludlow.

Later, while he studied at Fishmore School for Boys he developed a turkey enterprise before spending a year at Shuttleworth Agricultural College.

Mr Lewis was also involved with the Young Farmers movement and held the post of chairman along with various others. It was there that he met his wife Joan Alderson.

The couple married in 1971 and took over the farm at Priors Halton in 1973. They went on to have three children, Jonathan, Rosemary and Charlotte.

In 1990, Mr Lewis set about turning a ground-breaking idea into reality and opened Orleton Farm Shop, one of the first of its kind. A founder member of Ludlow’s local produce market, Mr Lewis was a regular stall holder until he retired in 2006.

He even held the record for being the only stall holder to attend every single market since the launch of the farmers market.

“He was so committed and dedicated he even turned up one day in the snow when he was the only stall holder,” said his daughter Charlotte Wright.

“He only had one customer all day and that was the traffic warden.”

He even received a special award from the Queen when she visited Ludlow in 2004 for being one of the longest running stallholders.

He held the post of Ludlow chairman of the NFU on three occasions and was county chairman in 1995.

He was also a governor at Ludlow School for a number of years and a Conservative councillor for Corvedale as well as churchwarden at St Mary’s Church in Bromfield.

Mr Lewis is survived by his wife Joan and children Jonathan, Rosemary and Charlotte and their spouses Lucy, Michael and Paul. He is also survived by his sister Jenny Harrison and brother David Lewis.