IF you are offered a cut-price set of Christmas cards showing a wonderful winter's "roofscape" of Ludlow, beware.

They are almost certainly from a batch of cards taken from a refuse skip. They are unlikely to have envelopes or, if they have, the envelopes will be the wrong size. If you do buy them you will be depriving the Fabric Trust for St Laurence Church of vital funds.

The Fabric Trust chose the striking photograph The Rosy-Fingered Dawn by Ludlow photographer Gareth Thomas for this year's cards.

The first batch of 3,000 was returned to the printer because the colours were too dark and there were some minor errors on the back.

Boxes of the cards went into the bottom of a skip at the public refuse tip in Sheet Road in the expectation that the skip would soon be filled with other refuse. But, before this could happen, one of the boxes, containing 600 cards, was removed. Meanwhile, a correct print run of cards went on sale at £2.50 for five, with envelopes.

"We are very sorry this happened. It's our fault," said printer Richard Maddicott. "This was not a commercial job and was done at cost."

"The printer has been very fair about this," said Chris Jeffery, on behalf of the Trust. "We know that some of the earlier cards have been offered around.

"They won't have envelopes with them or, if they do, the envelopes will be the wrong size."

If you want to buy the right cards and help the fabric of one of England's finest churches, they are available from St Laurence's Church, the Castle Bookshop and the Cat's Whiskers Studio in Lower Broad Street.