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Herefordshire is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire and Powys to the west. Hereford, the county town of Herefordshire has a population of approximately 61,000, making it the largest settlement in the county. The next biggest town is Leominster and then Ross-on-Wye. The county is situated in the historic Welsh Marches, Herefordshire is one of the most rural and sparsely populated counties in England, with a population density of 82/km2 (212/sq mi), and a 2021 population of 187,100 – the fourth-smallest of any ceremonial county in England. The land use is mostly agricultural and the county is well known for its fruit and cider production, and for the Hereford cattle breed. [edit] History to 1974
The history of Herefordshire starts with a shire in the time of Athelstan (895–939), and Herefordshire is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1051. The first Anglo-Saxon settlers, the Magonsætan, were a sub-tribal unit of the Hwicce who occupied the Severn valley. The Magonsætan were said to be in the intervening lands between the Rivers Wye and Severn. The undulating hills of marl clay were surrounded by the Welsh mountains to the west; the Malvern Hills to the east; the Clent Hills of the Shropshire borders to the north, and the indeterminate extent of the Forest of Dean to the south. The shire name first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was derived from "Here-ford", Old English for "Army crossing", the location for the city. The area was covered first by Offa of Mercia, who constructed the dyke as a boundary to keep warring tribes out of the Mercian kingdom: an early indication of the ambivalent relations with the Welsh. The shire as an administrative unit was developed from Alfred the Great's Burghal Hidage, and the Shire-reeve courts of the Hundred. In 676, during the reign of King Æthelred of Mercia the Archbishop of Canterbury Saint Theodore of Tarsus founded the Diocese of Hereford, to minister to the minor sub-kingdom of Magonsaete, and he appointed Putta as the first Bishop of Hereford. The establishment of a centre of law and justice was supported by a monastic chapter that flourished during the Tenth century Reformation. Hereford's geographical location at the hub of the shire allowed Anglo-Saxon ealdormen to manage affairs; and Hereford played a vital role in the Scandinavian wars until Ralph, Earl Hereford was deposed by the regal Earl Harold Godwinson. In the feudal Domesday Survey some adjacent areas of the Welsh Marches are assessed under Herefordshire. The western and southern borders remained debatable ground ("Archenfield") until, with the incorporation of the Welsh Marches in 1535, considerable territory was annexed to Herefordshire. These areas formed the hundreds of Wigmore, Ewyas Lacy and Huntington, while Ewyas Harold was subsumed into Webtree Hundred. At the time of the Domesday Survey the divisions of the county were very unsettled. As many as nineteen hundreds are mentioned, but these were of varying extent, some containing only one manor, some from twenty to thirty. Of the twelve modern hundreds, only Greytree, Radlow, Stretford, Wolphy and Wormelow retained their original Domesday names. The others were Broxash, Ewyas-Lacy, Grimsworth, Huntington, Webtree and Wigmore. Herefordshire is on the Welsh border (and before that the ancient boundary of the Welsh Marches). In the modern era the boundaries of the Forest were not set until 1750, by which period several Bishops' Peculiars were reassessed for land valuation and redistribution. Some land in the north-west of the county was ceded to Shropshire, and some land in the east to Worcestershire. However, in the south-west the Golden Valley lands were confirmed as Herefordiensis (Herefordian). A unique source for the history of the county is the Chained Library at Hereford Cathedral which contained some of the earliest printed books in Europe, printed by the Gutenburg press. During the English Civil Wars it acted as a royal treasury. During the medieval period the county had been defined in law by violence and cruel punishments. It played a large part in various civil wars and gave rise to Lollardism. A fiercely independent folk and a position on the border with Wales gave the county a reputation for a frontier mentality. Many were hanged for hayrick burning, owing to the relatively low agricultural wage, during the Swing Riots and later. However, in contrast to Norfolk, for example, it did not form a militant agricultural workers' union. Herefordshire continued to be backward in industrial development: the canals and railways arrived later than elsewhere in England. Development reflected local needs: processing cider apples, manufacturing agricultural machinery. It was not until the 1930s that the first female councillors were elected, and that a rural bus service could provide a short journey into Hereford. The population remained static for 150 years until 2000, at about 150,000. [edit] Changes since 1974In 1974 Herefordshire was merged with the western part of the neighbouring county of Worcestershire to form the Hereford and Worcester administrative county. Within this, Herefordshire was covered by the local government districts of South Herefordshire, Hereford, and part of Malvern Hills and Leominster districts. The county was dissolved in 1998, resulting in the return of Herefordshire and Worcestershire as separate counties (save for the part of Worcestershire which was absorbed into the new county of the West Midlands. On separating from Worcestershire, Herefordshire became one "unitary authority" with no underpinning district municipalities. The unitary authority is referred to here as the Herefordshire District. [edit] Research Tips
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