HEREFORDSHIRE, a county (inland), bounded on
the north by the county of Salop, on the north-east
and east by the county of Worcester, on the south-east
by the county of Gloucester, on the south - west by
the county of Monmouth, on the west by the county
of Brecknock, and on the north-west by the county of
Radnor: it extends from 51° 53 7" to 52° 29 4
(N. Lat.), and from 2° 2830" to 3° 19 32" (W. Lon.);
and contains, with the detached parts, about five hundred
and fifty thousand four hundred acres, or eight
hundred and sixty square miles. The population, in
1821, amounted to 103,243. At the period when the
Romans, under Claudius, penetrated into this part of
Britain, the present county of Hereford, or the greater
part of it, formed the most easterly portion of the
territory inhabited by-that warlike tribe the Silures,
whose valour, combined with the natural obstacles of
a mountainous district, opposed such a powerful impediment
to the Roman conquests in this quarter.
The defeat of Caractacus is thought to have taken
place in the vicinity of an eminence called Coxwall
Knoll, situated near Brampton-Bryan, and on the line
of boundary between this county and Shropshire; but
it was not until twenty years after that event, and
almost one hundred and twenty after the first Roman
invasion, that Herefordshire was finally subjugated by
Julius Frontinus: it was afterwards included in the Roman
province Britannia Secunda. For some time after
the establishment of the Saxon kingdom of Mercia, this
county being situated nearly on the frontier between
that kingdom and the territory still possessed by the descendants
of the ancient Britons, it was frequently the
scene of war and devastation, and appears to have been
alternately in the possession of the contending parties.
At length Offa, King of Mercia, having repulsed the
Britons in one of their invasions, crossed the river Severn,
which had hitherto been the boundary between
the Britons and the Saxons, and formed a new line of
demarcation by his famous dyke, called in the British
language Clawdd Offa (considerable remains of it being
still visible), by which part of the present county of Monmouth,
nearly the whole of that of Hereford, and parts
of those of Radnor and Salop, were wrested from the
Britons, and annexed to the kingdom of Mercia. Soon
after its completion, however, the Britons routed Offa's
army on the Mercian side of this rampart, but were
finally compelled to retire beyond it. At Sutton, about
three miles north-east from Hereford, that sovereign
erected and fortified a palace, which was afterwards the
scene of his treacherous murder of Ethelbert, King of
the East-Angles. When the Danish fleet entered the
Severn, during the administration of Ethelfleda, Countess
of Mercia, the Danes advanced along the banks of the
Wye, until they were attacked by a provincial force collected
from Hereford and the neighbouring places, when
they were defeated with great slaughter, those who escaped
being driven into Wales, and made prisoners by
the Britons. The Danes and the Britons, however, continued
their occasional hostilities; but King Edward the
Elder defeated the former, and frustrated the attempts
of the latter upon this county. In the reign of Ethelred,
the Danes again desolated this part of the country. In
that of Edward the Confessor, the Britons ravaged the
English frontier, which had then acquired the name of
the Marches, and included a considerable part of this
county; they were opposed by the garrison in the castle
of Hereford, but carried off much plunder. In this reign
also, Gryffyth, a prince of Wales, accompanied by Algar,
Earl of Chester, whom the king had banished, proceeded
into Herefordshire, and laid it waste; they defeated Ranulph,
Earl of Hereford, within two miles of the city,
which they afterwards entered, burning the cathedral,
and killing seven of the canons, who offered resistance:
they also put to death many persons of rank, set the
city on fire, levelled its walls, and then retired into Wales
laden with spoil. In revenge for this outrage, Edward
sent Harold, son of Earl Godwin, against the Britons,
who led part of his army to Hereford, which he strongly
fortified.
In the reign of William the Conqueror, Edric, surnamed
the Forester, son of Alfrick, Earl of Mercia,
whose lands had been repeatedly ravaged by the Norman
garrison of Hereford, having formed an alliance
with Blethyn and Rywalhon, princes of Wales, with
their assistance laid waste the county as far as the
bridge of Hereford. In the contest between Stephen
and Matilda, Geoffrey de Talebot and Robert, Earl of
Gloucester, who had large possessions here, declared for
the Empress. Talebot reduced and totally demolished
the castle of Weobley, which had been garrisoned for
Stephen; the king soon afterwards invested the city of
Hereford, but appears to have speedily raised the siege.
King John, when Prince Louis of France had landed
with his army in England, retired to Hereford, in the
vain hope of procuring succour. During the hostilities
of the barons against his son, Henry III., Hereford was
selected by them as the place of rendezvous; the king
marched against them, but found this county so much
impoverished from the continual devastations it had
endured, that he was obliged to retreat to Gloucester for
want of sustenance for his troops. Humphrey de Bohun,
Earl of Hereford, being one of the confederated barons
who afterwards rose against the same sovereign, with
the Earl of Leicester at their head, Prince Edward, after
the capture of himself and his father at Lewes, was conducted
to Hereford, and left there in custody by the
allied armies of Leicester and Llewellyn, Prince of
Wales; and from that city it was that he made his
escape previously to the decisive battle of Evesham.
After the subjection of Wales to the English crown by
Edward I., the Welch still occasionally made predatory
incursions; and Edward found it necessary to issue orders
for raising a body of infantry in Herefordshire, to
check this petty warfare. Isabella, Queen of Edward II.;
advanced with an army as far as Hereford, when in pursuit
of her unfortunate husband, who having been seized
in Carmarthenshire, was conveyed to Ledbury in this
county. Hereford was also the scene of the execution
of his favourite, Hugh le Despencer, together with the
Earl of Arundel and others. In the war between
Henry IV. and Owen Glyndwr, the latter infesting
the estate of the Earl of March amongst others, Sir
Edmund Mortimer, uncle to that nobleman, led out the
retainers of the family, and gave him battle, but his
troops were routed, and himself made prisoner. At the
same time, the earl himself, who had been allowed to
return to his castle of Wigmore, and who, though yet a
boy, led his followers into the field, fell also into Glyndwr's
hands, and was carried into Wales, where Henry,
from motives of policy, suffered him to remain in captivity
j which wilful neglect on the part of the king occasioned
the earl to join the league of Glyndwr with
the Earl of Northumberland. In the early part of the
contest between the houses of York and Lancaster, the
Duke of York advancing into this county from Wales,
with a force of twenty thousand men, met the Earls of
Pembroke and Ormond, who had been detached by
Queen Margaret to oppose him, and routed them with
great slaughter on Candlemas-eve, in the year 1461, at
a place called Mortimer's Cross, in the parish of Kingsland,
about four miles south of Wigmore, the seat of the
Mortimer family. Owen Tudor, husband of Catherine
of France, having been taken prisoner in this castle, was
afterwards beheaded at Hereford, with nine other officers.
The incorporation of the Welch Marches with
the adjoining counties, by act of parliament passed in
the 27th of Henry VIII., added, of rather restored, a
considerable extent of territory to Herefordshire: Wigmore,
Stapleton, and Lugharness, on the northern side of
the county, were appointed to constitute the hundred
of Wigmore; and on the western side, Ewyas-Lacy was
formed into the hundred of that name; Huntington,
-Clifford, Winforton, Eardisley, and Whitney, into the
hundred of Huntington; and Ewyas-Harrold was added
to that of Webtree.
From this period no very remarkable event bearing
particular relation to this county occurred, until the
icommencement of the contest between Charles I. and the
parliament, when the greater number of the principal
Herefordshire families espoused the royal cause. The
city of Hereford was garrisoned by the royalists, but surrendered
without resistance to a parliamentarian force
under Sir William Waller: it was soon after evacuated,
and again garrisoned for the king, under Barnabas
Scudamore, The Scottish army in the interest of the
parliament, and under the orders of the Earl of Leven,
was directed to retake it, and previously to the commencement
of the siege, attacked and carried away by
assault a post occupied by the royalists at Canon-Froome,
near Ledbtiry: for this service the House of Commons
ordered a letter of thanks to be written to the general;
and-a-jewel of the value of £500 was presented to him
as an earnest of the favour of both houses. After the
defeat at Naseby, the king marched towards Hereford,
in order to relieve it from the siege, or give battle to
the Scots, who, after levying very heavy contributions
throughout the county, at length raised the siege on the
approach of Charles and his army from Worcestershire.
At Hereford, the king assembled all his forces from
Worcestershire, Shropshire, and South Wales, to attempt
the relief of Bristol. In 1646, Hereford was taken by
surprise, and, after considerable resistance from other
places, the whole county was reduced by detachments
of the parliamentary troops under the command of Sir
William. Waller, and of Colonel Birch, a very zealous
and active officer.
The whole of this county, excepting the parishes of
Clodock, Dulas, Ewyas-Harrold, Llancillo, Michael-
Church-Eskley, Rowlstone, St. Margaret's, and.Walterstone,
(which are in the diocese of St. David,) is included
in the diocese of Hereford, and province of Canterbury,
and forms an archdeaconry, comprising the deaneries
of Clun, Froome, Hereford, Irchenfield, Leominster,
Ross, Weobley, and Weston, and containing two hundred
and eighteen parishes, of which, eighty-three are rectories,
eighty-four vicarages, and the remainder perpetual
curacies. For civil purposes it is divided into the
eleven hundreds of Broxash, Ewyas-Lacy, Greytree,
Grimsworth, Huntington, Radlow, Stretford, Webtree,
Wigmore, Wolphy, and Wormelow (Lower and Upper).
Some detached parts are situated beyond its general outline;
the township of Farlow is wholly isolated by Shropshire
5 that of Rochford by Worcestershire; Litton Hill
by Radnorshire; and a considerable tract of land, called
the Foothog, and a few acres on the Devaudon-hill, by
Monmouthshire. On the other hand, the parish of Edwin-
Loch, which forms part of Worcestershire, is surrounded
by Herefordshire. This county contains the city of
Hereford, the borough and market-towns of Leominster
and Weobley, and the market-towns of Bromyard,
Kington, Ledbury, Pembridge, and Ross. Two knights
are returned for the shire, two representatives for the
city, and two for each of the boroughs. The county
members are elected at Hereford. Herefordshire is
included in the Oxford circuit: the assizes and general
quarter sessions are held at Hereford, where stands the
county gaol and house of correction: there are one
hundred and thirty-six acting magistrates. The rates
raised in this county for the year ending March 25th,
1827, amounted to £68,731. 17; the expenditure to
£69,433. 5., of which £57,423. 9. was applied to the
relief of the poor. The Malvern hills form a kind of
natural boundary on the eastern side of the county,
and the Halterell, or Black mountains, rise to an equal
elevation on its western border; from these and other
eminences Herefordshire exhibits a scene of beauty
and richness not surpassed by any other county in
England. The river Wye, in particular, enriches and
adorns a tract of this county, between forty and fifty
miles in length, and the scenery on its banks is thought
to excel any of a similar kind in the kingdom. The
general character of the river, from its entrance into
the county down to Hereford, is mild and pleasing, consisting
of delightful reaches, with the most luxuriant
landscapes on their sides; the bolder and more romantic
features of the scenery of this river occur in its
course below Hereford.
The climate, on the whole, is favourable to health
and longevity; but it varies much in different districts
and at different altitudes. The vicinity of Ross is
the earliest as regards vegetation: the western and
north-western parts of the county are the coldest, on
account of their superior elevation, and their exposure
to the westerly winds, which, blowing over the bleak
mountains of Wales, are, in this part of the county,
chill and ungenial. The general character of the soil
is a mixture of marl and clay of great fertility, containing
also a certain proportion of calcareous earth;
below the surface are strata of limestone, often beautifully
intersected by red and white veins, bearing
some resemblance to calcareous spar: near Snodhill
castle, in the hundred of Webtree, it becomes a kind
of marble, and was in considerable use and estimation
during part of the seventeenth century. Towards the
western border of the county the soil is often cold and
sterile, but still argillaceous and resting on nodules
of impure limestone, or on a base of soft crumblingstone,
which perishes by exposure to air and frost.
In many places in the eastern part of the county it
is loose and shallow, covering stone of inferior value,
provincially called dun-stone, the more favourable
portions of which are found suitable to the culture
of hops. Deep beds of fine gravel are more especially
met with in the centre of the county, in the vicinity of
the city of Hereford. The soil of a large portion of
the hundred of Wormelow, on the south, consists of a
light sand, which has been much improved by the use
of lime as a manure. A clayey tract extends from Hereford
towards Ledbury, and produces the most abundant
crops of wheat in the county. About five hundred and
twenty thousand acres of land are in cultivation. On
the stiff clays with which Herefordshire abounds wheat
is the principal crop, and a very considerable quantity
is raised beyond the internal consumption, the surplus
being sent every year chiefly to Worcester, Abergavenny,
and Bristol. The greatest quantity of oats sown is in
those parts approaching the Welch border, and on portions
of the eastern border of the county. The average
produce of wheat per acre is twenty bushels; that of bar-
ley about eighteen; and of oats and peas about twenty.
Hop plantations exist in all parts of the county, but more
especially on the Worcestershire side: five hundred
weight are esteemed the fair produce of a provincial
hop-acre, which contains two thousand poles, there
being on an average two poles to each root. The
plantations are more generally worked with the plough
than with the spade. The most fertile meadow lands
are on the banks of the Wye, the Frome, and the Lug;
their herbage being of the very best quality. The vicinity
of Bromyard produces cheese, which is brought to the
market, and rivals the best Shropshire cheese; but this
not being a dairy county, it is supplied from Wales with
excellent butter, and with cheese from Shropshire and
Gloucestershire. The cattle have long been esteemed
superior to most breeds in England; they are of large
size, sinewy form, and unusual neatness, and the prevailing
colour is a reddish brown with white faces. At the
Michaelmas fair at Hereford, where the show of oxen
in thriving condition is remarkably fine, they are
generally sold to the principal graziers of the counties
near the metropolis, to be there fattened for the London
market. Grazing and cattle-feeding are not generally
practised, except for provincial consumption,; but the
rearing of oxen for the purposes of agriculture prevails.
The oxen perform nearly half the ploughing, and the
same proportion of the harvest work; and in situations
where their labour is frequently required on hard
roads they are shod with iron. The Herefordshire cow
is comparatively small, and. extremely delicate in her
appearance. The provincial breed of sheep is termed
the Ryeland, from the district so named lying partly in
the county of Gloucester, and partly in this county, in
the vicinity of Ross, which is particularly favourable to
them from the dryness of the soil and the sweetness
of the herbage. They are small and white-faced; in
symmetry of form, and in the flavour of their flesh,
they exceed most English sheep; and in the fineness
of their wool they are unrivalled; the ewes weigh from
nine to twelve and fourteen pounds per quarter, the
wethers from twelve to sixteen and eighteen. The Ryeland
sheep have been crossed with the New Leicester,
to the advantage perhaps of the breeder who is situated
on good land, but to the detriment of the wool. A cross
has been advantageously made between the Ryeland
and the real Spanish breed. To the barrenness of the
pasture on which the Ryeland sheep usually feed, may
in some degree be attributed the fineness of their wool,
for the quality of it is immediately impaired by a copious
supply of food. The sheep-shearing in Herefordshire
is performed by women.
Plantations of fruit trees are found in every aspect
and on every soil: these orchards, which form
so important a part of the produce of Herefordshire,
seem to have first acquired celebrity in the reign of
Charles I., and the county has long been celebrated for
its cider, a large quantity of which is sent to London
and the other principal towns in the kingdom. The
soil best adapted to the growth of most kinds of apple
trees, and the best kinds of pear trees, is a deep
rich loam, when under culture by the plough. An Agricultural
Society was established in this county in 1797.
Considerable quantities of saffron were formerly grown,
but the culture of it in this county has long been discontinued.
The waste lands form a very inconsiderable
proportion of the extent of Herefordshire; the largest
tract is on the east side of the Hatterell, or Black
mountains, where the steepness of the hills, and the
sterility of the soil, oppose powerful obstacles to improvement.
Almost every part of the county abounds with
woods and plantations, containing fine oaTt and elm trees.
The northern side of it, including the Forests of Mocktree
and Prestwood, has a greater abundance of fine oak
than the southern parts, although large and valuable
supplies of timber are produced in the latter. Some of
the most extensive coppices are situated in the parishes
of Fownhope, Woolhope, and Little Birch, and in the
vicinity of Ledbury. They consist chiefly of oak, ash,
and willow, and are generally cut down once in thirteen
years; the ash is converted into hoops, which are in
great demand within the county for the cider casks; the
oak and the willow furnish hop-poles, while the blackpoles,
which are those of larger size, and of oak only,
are used as rafters, &c., in building.
Iron-ore is of very ancient discovery in the hundred
of Wormelow, where many of the hand-blomeries used
by the Romans, and considerable quantities of ore imperfectly
smelted, have been found on Peterstow common;
of late years, however, no iron has been manufactured
in Herefordshire. There have been found red
and yellow ochre, fullers earth, and pipe-clay. The
southern part of the county, and the city of Hereford,
are supplied with coal from the pits in the Forest of
Dean, in Gloucestershire; the Clee hills of Shropshire
furnish the northern and eastern parts; and the western
procure it occasionally from Abergavenny.
The principal rivers are the Wye, the Lug, the Munnow,
the Arrow, the Frome, the Teme, and the Leddon.
The Wye, having separated the counties of Brecknock
and Radnor, enters Herefordshire between the parishes
of Whitney and Clifford, and pursuing a south-easterly
course, by Hereford and Ross, quits it at its southern
extremity; the latter part of its course in Herefordshire
being remarkably circuitous. This river is navigable
up to Hereford for barges of from eighteen to thirty
tons burden, but the navigation is frequently interrupted
by either a scarcity of water, or by the violence of the
stream when swelled by the mountain torrents, which
is often such as to make great alterations in the bed
of the river, and sometimes occasions it to form new
channels. The principal sea fish taken in, the Wye is
the salmon, which, however, is much less abundant
than it was formerly, when it was a common clause in
the indentures of children apprenticed in Hereford that
they should not be compelled to eat salmon more than
twice a week; its chief fresh water fish are pike, graylings,
trout, perch, and eels. The Lug rises in Radnorshire,
and enters the north-western border of this county
near Stapleton castle, in the hundred of Wigmore, then
taking a south-easterly direction, by Leominster, it falls
into the Wye immediately below the village of Mordiford.
In the year 1714 an attempt was made, by private
subscription, to render this river navigable, and a few
barges ascended it as far as Leominster; but a high
flood following soon after, the locks, &c. which had been
constructed were so materially injured, that no attempts
to repair or renew the works had been made up to the
year 1805. The sea fish common to the Wye are seldom
found in the Lug; but the river fish are found alike m
either. The Munnow rises on the Herefordshire side of
the Hatterel mountains, and flowing southward, becomes
the boundary between this county and Monmouthshire,
and so continues until it passes Llanrothall and quits
the county, falling into the Wye immediately below
Monmouth; its principal fish are trout, gudgeons, eels,
and cray-fish. The Arrow, so called from the swiftness
of its stream, rises in Radnorshire, and entering this
county near Kington, joins the Lug a few miles below
Leominster; its fish are trout, graylings, and cray-fish.
The Frome rises near Wolferlow, in the hundred of
Broxash, and flowing southward, passes Bromyard, and
falls into the Lug near Mordiford. The Teme, or Team,
enters Herefordshire from the north-west, near Brampton-
Bryan, and passes alternately through parts of this
county and Shropshire; it then makes a considerable
circuit in Worcestershire, but returns to Whitbourne,
below the town of Bromyard, immediately after which
it finally quits this county for Worcestershire. The.
Leadon, or Leddon, rises above Bosbury, in Radlow
hundred, and passes the town of Ledbury, to which it
gives name, a short distance below which it enters
Gloucestershire. In consequence of the precariousness
of the navigation of the Wye, an act of parliament
was obtained, in the year 1791, for making a navigable
,canal from the city of Hereford, by the town of Ledbury,
to the Severn at Gloucester, with a lateral cut to
the collieries at Newent. The expense of constructing
this canal, commonly ealled the Hereford and Gloxicester
canal, was found so much to exceed .the original
estimate of £69,000, that in 1807, when £105,000 had
been expended upon; it, the work, though completed on
the Gloucestershire side, had made little progress in
Herefordshire. Soon after the former, an act was obtained
for another canal, from Kington to Leominster
and Stourport, the chief articles of importation by
which were stated to be lime and coal from Shropshire.
A part of the line from Leominster to Stourport was
completed in 1796; but the expense of this undertaking,
like that of the former, was found so much to exceed
the estimate as to prevent the further progress of
the work. The road from- London to New Radnor enters
the south-western border of the county from Glou-
cester, and passes through Hereford and Kington.
The only remarkable Druidical relic in this county,
is Arthur's stone, in the parish of Dorstone; but British
intrenchments are numerous. Two Roman towns are
supposed, by the most respectable authorities, to have
been situated within the limits of modern Herefordshire,
those of Ariconium and Magna; and with respect to their
situations, the most probable opinion seems to be that
of Horsley, that Magna was at Kenchester, where the
circumvallation may still be traced, and Ariconium near
Ross, in the parish of Weston sub Penyard, where the
extent and limits are discernible by a blackness of soil,
strikingly different from all around itj and where
Roman coins have been occasionally found. Of the
four Roman military roads in Britain, only that called
Watling-street intersects this county; it enters it from
Worcestershire, across the river Teme, at Leintwardine,
and passing by Wigmore, Mortimer's Cross, Stretford,
Kenchester, Kingstone, Dore-Abbey, and Longtown, en-
ters Monmouthshire at a short distance beyond the latter
place; the most perfect remains of it are on Four-ways
common, near Madley., where it crosses the turnpikeroad
from Hereford. A vicinal way may also be traced
in a great part of its line, which enters the county from.
Worcester, and passes by Frome-hill, Stretton-Grandsome,
\ Lugg-bridge, Homier, and Stretton-Sugwas, to
Kenchester. The cathedral of Hereford, and several of
the parochial churches, exhibit specimens of Anglo-Saxon
architecture. Prior to the Reformation there were
twenty-one religious houses in this county, the principal
remains of which are those of the abbeys of Dore and
Wigmore. The castles were numerous; the chief remains
are those of Brampton-Bryan, Clifford, Huntington,
Goodrich, Kilpec, Longtown, Lyonshall, Wigmore,
and Wilton castles. Several petrifying or encrusting
springs, exist in such hilly parts as consist of argillaceous
marl upon limestone. The custom of decking the grave
with flowers after an interment is general in Herefordshire,
as it is throughout Wales. On the first of May
it is customary to deck the houses with birchen boughs;
on the 29th of May to celebrate the Restoration with oak
boughs; and on Ascension-day with elm branches. On
twelfth-day-eve thirteen small fires are lighted on the
growing wheat, and cakes and liquor distributed on the
spot, amid the loud invocations of the party for the
prosperity of the owner, and for a plentiful crop; this
custom is well known under the name of wassailing.
The parish feasts, or wakes, are held in the churchyards,
on the Sunday after the festival of the saint to
whom the church is dedicated.