Place:Craswall, Herefordshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Craswall (historically also spelt Craswell, Crasswall and Crosswold) is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England. It lies in the far west of the county, in the foothills of the Black Mountains, close to the border with Wales and near the source of the River Monnow. In the 2001 UK census the population of the civil parish was 147, increasing to 153 at the 2011 census.

Before 1536 Craswall was in the marcher lordship of Ewyas. Until 1866 it was a chapelry in the large parish of Clodock (until 1852 in the diocese of St David's). It then became a separate civil parish.

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

"CRASSWALL, or Crosswold, a township-chapelry in Clodock parish, Hereford[shire]; on the river Monnow, adjacent to the boundary with Brecon[shire], 5½ miles SE of Hay [railway] station. Post Town: Hay, under Hereford. Real property: £2,197. Population: 356. Houses: 76. The property is divided among a few. An alien priory, subordinate to Grandmont, was founded, in the time of King John, at what is now called the Abbey farm; and given, in the time of Edward IV., to Christ's college, Cambridge. The living is a [perpetual] curacy in the diocese of Hereford. Value: £47. Patron: the Vicar of Clodock. The church is old but very good."

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.