Place:Dorstone, Herefordshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Dorstone (Llangernyw in Welsh) is a village and a former large parish within the Golden Valley, in Herefordshire, England. Dorstone once contained a castle, Dorstone Castle. A mile to the south the fragmentary remains of Snodhill Castle can still be seen. Dorstone had a population of 401 in the UK census of 2011.

St. Faith's parish church in Dorstone was reputedly built by Richard de Brito, one of the knights who murdered Thomas Becket, as penance for the murder. He also built the Pandy Inn in Dorstone to house the workmen who built the church. In the 1890s, during rebuilding of the church, a tomb to another de Brito was found which contained a pewter chalice.

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

"DORSTONE, a village, two townships, and a parish in the [registration] district of Hay and county of Hereford. The village stands on the river Dore, near the Hereford and Brecon railway, 5½ miles E of Hay; and has fairs on 27 April, 18 May, 27 Sep., and 18 Nov. The townships are Upper and Lower Dorstone; and lie around the village. The parish includes also part of the township of Vow-mine. Post Town: Bredwardine, under Hereford. Acres: 5,385. Real property: £4,354. Population: 547. Houses: 120. The property is divided among a few. A castle stood anciently at the village, and another at Snodhill. A stone column, thought by some to be Druidical, crowns a hill near the village, and is seen at a considerable distance. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Hereford. Value: £446. Patron: the Rev. T. Powell. The church is old and good; and was originally Norman. Charities, £81."

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.