Place:Abbey Dore, Herefordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Abbey Dore is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, known for Dore Abbey, a 12th-century Cistercian abbey, which was expanded in the 13th century.

The name Abbey Dore, came into being in the 18th century combining the Modern English word abbey for the Cistercian Abbey in the village and the river name dore from Primitive Welsh meaning 'water'.

The village is situated in the Golden Valley, and has a population of 342, increasing to 385 at the 2011 Census.

The Grade I listed parish church of St Mary is the former abbey church. It is on Historic England's list of buildings at risk.

Abbeydore railway station closed in 1941. It was on the Great Western Railway branch line linking Pontrilas and Hay-on-Wye. The railway always spelt the name of the village as one word.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Abbey Dore from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"ABBEYDORE, a village and a parish in the [registration] district and county of Hereford. The village stands on the river Dore, 2 miles NW of Pontrilas [railway] station, and 11 SW of Hereford; and has a post office under Hereford. It is an old-fashioned place, and offers facilities for anglers. The parish comprises 5,390 acres. Real property: £4,593. Population: 551. Houses: 99. The property is divided among a few. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Hereford. Value: £680. Patrons: the co-heirs of the late duchess of Norfolk. A Cistertian Abbey was founded here, by Robert de Ewyas, in the time of King Stephen; and passed, at the dissolution, to the Scudamores. The present church belonged to the Abbey was recently repaired, and contains a fine old pulpit, some beautiful painted windows, and several ancient monuments. Charities, £44."

Research Tips

• Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre, Fir Tree Lane, Rotherwas, Hereford HR2 6LA is where paper and microfilm copies of all records for Herefordshire are stored. The Archives Centre has a website where the index to the archives (and also the wills catalog) can be searched. One item in the catalog is List of all Herefordshire parish register and bishops transcripts holdings which is a PDF file with information provided in an old version of Excel.

Online sources which may also be helpful:

• GENUKI gives pointers to other archive sources as well as providing some details on each parish in the county. The emphasis here is on ecclesiastical parishes (useful before 1837)
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 and tables of the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The FamilySearch Wiki for Herefordshire provides a similar but not identical series of webpages to that provided by GENUKI
• A Vision of Britain through Time has a group of pages of statistical facts for almost every parish in the county
• Unfortunately, only one volume on Herefordshire has been published in the Victoria County History series. British History Online have produced a series of Ordnance Survey first edition maps for the county which may be helpful for mid-nineteenth century inquiries
• Ancestry.co.uk lists its collections of Herefordshire genealogical material.
• FindMyPast collections of historical records can be searched for Herefordshire. They have collections of parish records for the pre-1837 period.