Newsletter
5
Summer
1973
CASTLE
FROME
K.A.
Lindsay
As
a newcomer to this district, I was very impressed by the amount of historical
interest in this small out-of-the-way spot.
Castle
Frome, which is referred to on old maps as Frome of the Castle or Frome of the
King, is about two miles from Bishops Frome and about the same distance from
Canon Frome, which received its name from the canons of Llanthony Abbey who
administered it. The river Frome skirts the above villages and runs
through Bromyard. The old canal runs south-west of Canon Frome towards
Hereford and became disused after the railway was built.
In
1645 during the Civil War, a Scottish army, under the Earl of Leven, attempted
to capture Hereford for the Parliamentarians; failing to do this the Scots
infiltrated round Hereford and reached the Frome valley. There was a
royalist garrison at Canon Frome where there was a residence belonging to the
Hopton family, with a drawbridge and moat. It was a strategic point in the
line of communication between Hereford and Worcester, and changed hands on
several occasions. A most interesting account of these operations is
contained in the Military Memoir of Col. John Birch, which can be found in
Hereford Library.
The
castle, from which Castle Frome gets its name, was situated on high ground east
of the church; it is reputed to have been destroyed in the Stephen and Matilda
wars and today only the remnants of its earthworks survive in thick woodlands.
Town Farm, close to the church is not particularly old, but excavations have
revealed Roman roadworks and specimens of wild hellebore which is a sign of
Roman occupation.
The
church of St. Michael is small, but well constructed and maintained; there is a
sunken roadway running just north of the church towards the castle. The
most interesting features of the church of St. Michael are the Unett tomb, the
font, the stone crusader’s head, and the communion chalice; these will be
described later. Inside the churchyard there is a magnificent yew tree
about nine feet in diameter, while the local Gospel Yew is near the lodge to
Birchend about one mile away on the Ledbury road.
There
are various Gospel yews, oaks and ashes scattered about the country, where the
local parsons used to hold occasional services. At the Birchend one there
was a seat where farmers used to gather in the evening for a chat.
Birchend
was the seat of the Unett family and the lodge is a very colourful Victorian
landmark with gay gardens on the road to Ledbury, built by a Mr. Pitt of
Birchend for his ladylove. This practice seems to have been a common one
in these parts, because I have been told that the owner of Paunton Court did the
same thing in Victorian times. Not much is known of the original Birchend
building which was burnt down at some time, but there was a homestead moat,
which was destroyed at the time of the modernization of the farm.
Mrs.
Farr, who lives at Yarkhill now, lived at Castle Frome most of her life, and was
able to provide me with local information. She says her mother told her
that one lady of the village used to avoid paying toll at the turnpike by
driving her donkey-cart down the front drive of Birchend and up the back to
rejoin the road.
The
name Unett is not a common one and there are no apparent descendants in this
neighbourhood, but Mr. John Unett of Malvern has carried out considerable
research and has produced a family tree which hangs on the church wall, together
with a black and white reproduction of the two figures on the Unett tomb.
Old records show that in 1569 the manor was leased to William Unett for the term
of 10,000 years at the yearly rent of one red rose. Mr. John Unett claims
no descent from this family, but from a Staffordshire branch. The Unetts
married into various local families but not with the Slaughters of Cheyne Court,
the other big house in the neighbourhood which was also burnt down., the only
remains being a 16th-century barn, said to have been used as a chapel, with an
interesting turret. The heroine of In spite of all, a novel by Edna Lyall
(1901) describing Herefordshire during the Civil Wars, was one Hilary Unett.
The
Mormon connection with Castle Frome is rather an extraordinary one. In
1840 John Benbow, who farmed Hill Farm, joined the Latter Day Saints and taking
with him about 600 converts went to Salt Lake City, U.S.A., where he became a
leading member of the community. An old man, William Taylor, who died some
forty years ago, aged about eighty, worked all his life at Hill Farm and was
to1d by his parents how John Benbow had organised the United Brethren and how
they were all baptised in a pond a short distance from Hill House. For
many years, with the exception of the war years, a steady trickle of Mormon
pilgrims came in August and September. After the last war, owing to the
American forces being over here, they came all the year round. They came
to see the pond and occasionally a child was baptised. On the whole they
were harmless types, dressed like black crows, and some were interested in the
church registers to trace their ancestors. One unfortunate local man lost
his good-looking wife, who was smuggled off to the U.S.A. and not heard of
since. There are three Benbows buried in Castle Frome churchyard.
Ann (95) in 1851, Sarah (69) in 1855 and Thomas (80) in 1873.
The
Unett tomb, with alabaster reclining figures of a cavalier and his wife, is
situated in the sanctuary and includes small effigies of his family. An
interesting mystery is the fact that four daughters are represented on the tomb,
but only three are referred to on the tablet overhead.
A
stone effigy which is likely to be missed by visitors is a crusader’s bust in
chain mail holding a casket. It obviously contained the heart of a knight
killed in Palestine, where his body was buried.
The
outstanding treasure of the church is the ancient stone font, reputed to be
Norman, but the carving has a Scandinavian influence and represents the four
evangelistic creatures and the Baptism. It is very similar to the Tympanum
in Fownhope Church which shows the Virgin and Child, eagle and lion.
The
monuments have not been unduly knocked about, but Mrs. Unett’s nose has caught
it, and the East window has had to be replaced; some of the mediaeval glass has
been preserved on the south side of the church.
The
new East window was erected in memory of Lieut. Raine, R.E., who was killed in
France in 1918. His parents lived at Hanburies, Bishops Frome, but
preferred to worship at Castle Frome Church. The latest memorial in the
church is a tasteful black and gold tablet to Lieut. Lock of Paunton Court, who
was killed at Alamein.
As
the years go by, it is becoming apparent that objects of historic interest are
being neglected; this particularly refers to churches, which are becoming
redundant and sold. The need for a Local History Society and its records
is therefore vital.
-------------------------------
NONCONFORMITY IN NORTH HEREFORDSHIRE
Deborah Waller
In
February Miss Sue Hubbard, the assistant county archivist, came to speak to
members about Nonconformity in North Herefordshire.
Miss
Hubbard spoke of the three branches of Nonconformity which she felt had had most
influence in the County, namely the Lollards, the Friends and the Primitive
Methodists, and she suggested that the Lollards had paved the way for the
Friends and Primitive Methodists of the 17th and 19th centuries.
The
Lollards were active at the end of the l4th.century. They believed in
reform within the church both of the moral standards of some of the priests, and
of the high taxes levied by the Church and Pope. Furthermore, ‘the Great
Heresy’, they did not believe in transubstantiation. Miss Hubbard
mentioned Robert Eastman of Stoke Bliss and Thomas Delahay of Kyre as being
local men who were Lollards. The sect suffered much persecution for their
beliefs, and the last of them, Sir John Oldcastle, said to be from Almeley, was
hanged and burned at the Tower. With his death the movement also died.
However,
Almeley was to become the centre of more Independent thinkers two hundred years
later when the Friends or Quakers built a meeting house there in 1679. The
Friends flourished in a way the Lollards had not because they had an organised
leadership, among whom at Almeley were Roger Pritchard and his family. The
Friends were and are pacifists. They wanted freedom to worship God in
their own way, and they suffered for it in fines and imprisonment. They
were generous to the poor and needy, and laid great stress upon education.
The
Primitive Methodists also did much to educate the people. This branch of
Methodism believed in taking the church out to the people and there was an
upsurge of Primitive Methodism in the Black Country in the early 19th Century.
Miss Hubbard spoke of the Leintwardine Circuit and how Primitive Methodism had a
similar appeal to the hard-pressed agricultural labourer as it had to
downtrodden factory workers. When a farm labourer’s wage averaged 9/- a
week and coal was 22/- per ton, life was hard and had few pleasures. The
sincerity and simplicity of Primitive Methodism had a direct appeal to many.
The
first Agricultural Workers’ Union for North Herefordshire and South Shropshire
was started by a Primitive Methodist of the Leintwardine Circuit. Its
motto was ‘Emigration, migration but no strikes’.
------------------------------
ENGLISH
WOOL TRADE AND ITS INFLUENCE IN HEREFORDSHIRE
Joan
Leese
‘Possibly
the most important animal which has ever trodden the earth’ was Mr. P.R.
Baker’s description of the sheep when, in March, he talked to us on the
English wool trade and its influence in this county.
Mr.
Baker described the different varieties of wool, and said the finest short wool
used in the manufacture of cloth was produced from Ryeland sheep here in the
Welsh Marches. This breed originated in the south of the county, but the
excellence of their wool reached its pinnacle in Leominster. It was not
produced in great quantities for the Ryeland was a small animal with a light
fleece, and delicate so that at night the flocks were kept in sheds.
In
1121, as recognition of increasing prosperity, Hereford was given the right to
hold a three-day fair, and Leominster’s charter was granted for a market free
of tolls. Forty years later Hereford’s fair was extended to seven days,
thereby giving it national status. The old Wye Bridge and the present
cathedral date from this period. Also around this time a colony of Jews,
probably attracted by the wool trade, settled in stone houses in Maylord Street.
The records of the Assize of Cloth in 1204 show Worcester, Gloucester and
Hereford among the leading eight towns of the country in the production of
material. Leominster’s growing importance later in the century can be
gauged by the fact that Hereford and Worcester staged a joint remonstrance in
1266 and succeeded in getting its market day changed to Friday from Saturday.
Around this time Weobley was granted a market, and the entire county entered a
period of prosperity. Under the Tudors Leominster was granted the right to
hold two fairs.
Foreign
merchants found Britain commercially backward and so the wool trade affected
another development in the country’s economic life. A banking system was
established here by Jews, Italians and financiers from the Low Countries.
Restrictions
imposed by the Guilds, and also the need for swift flowing streams for the
fulling mills, caused an exodus from the established wool towns to outlying
districts. Thus began development in the Cotswolds. The established
towns were seriously undermined in early Tudor times, and so cloth manufacture
was forbidden except in certain towns. However, despite all this, Leland
notes that Worcester’s trade was flourishing in the middle years of the 16th
century.
Markets
began to contract in the 17th century for English wool was becoming coarse
except for that produced at Leominster. There was a gradual swing to mixed
farming and attempts to produce more meat by cross-breeding which spoilt the
quality of the wool. From 1750 Ryelands were being bred for their meat,
and in 1790 cross-breeding with them was tried. That a Hereford weaver
apprenticed his son to a shoemaker in 1775 was a sign of the decline in the wool
trade. It was finally finished when Merino sheep were taken to Australia
and the early 19th century saw the end of England’s career as a wool producer.
Unfortunately a
corresponding
decline in the old towns followed.
Mr.
Baker also traced the development of the industry from. the cottage to the
factory system which began in the 13th century. Talking of the changes in
agriculture he said the earliest enclosures of land were made for the purpose of
wool growing in Tudor times, against which Tyndale fulminated in 1611. In
the l6th and 17th centuries writers regarded Herefordshire as mainly enclosed.
Numerous examples of depopulated villages, once prosperous in the Middle Ages,
are on record, including Brinsop, Wormesley, Wootten Devereux and Pencombe
where, it was said, ‘villagers turned away weeping’.
He
ended his long and detailed talk with appropriate words engraved by a Cotswold
wool producer on a window of his new house, ‘I praise God and ever shall, it
is the sheep that pays for all’.
--------------------------------
FIELD
DAY IN AVENBURY
Jennifer McCulloch
This
field day was arranged with the primary object of finding sites of deserted
settlement. During the months preceding the walk, members of the Society
visited nearly every farm in Avenbury looking for possible places of interest
and at the same time recording all the buildings in the parish.
Avenbury
means ‘fortified place on the Avon’. ‘Avon’ is a common Celtic
river name but how this applies to Avenbury which is by the river Frome is not
clear. The parish covered some 3233 acres. Within the parish were
the Domesday manors of Avenbury, Hopton, Sargeberie (Sawbury Hill), and possibly
the manor of Froome.1 Little Frome, an estate in the parish, claimed the
privilege of a subordinate manor within the manor of Avenbury
2
and these may well be one and the same.
Particular
attention was paid to those places for which there is documentary evidence for
past settlement. Included in the parish was the township of the Okes or
Noakes. In the 13th century one part of the Okes consisted of nine
messuages, sixty acres of arable land, two of meadow, one of pasture, and one
and a half of wood. This was then held of the Crown by Agnes de Blerhesdon
by the service of finding one horse towards conducting the King’s treasure
from Hereford to London, for which she was allowed tweIve pence per day in
going, and nothing on the return.
3
The detached part of Avenbury parish which included the farms of the Noakes and
Sawbury Hill is now part of the parish of Bredenbury. At the Noakes, in a
field called Noble Meadow (Tithe Map), S0 632550, three shallow hollows have
recently been filled in. These, Miss Hickling considered, were probably
house platforms where the stone foundations had been robbed for building stone.
A great many sherds of medieval pottery were picked up at this site.
Several flint chippings have been found in the soil at the Noakes. A large
neolithic arrowhead or small spearhead, and what is probably a microlith have
recently been found just east of the R. Frome, S0 635555.
At
the neighbouring farm of Sawbury Hill, SO 623553, traces of moating were
recorded in the Victoria County History, but these seem to have disappeared.
There are indeterminate earthworks in the fields immediately adjacent to the
homestead and in the field immediately north of the homestead there is a large
amount of stone. A hollow way leads from here down the valley in a
northerly direction, SO 623554. In the Domesday survey Sargeberie was a
small manor of two-and-a-half virgates held by Hugh of Roger de Lacy and was
described as ‘waste’.1
Hopton,
meaning ‘tun in the valley’, was another small separate manor held after the
Conquest by Richer of William son of the Norman, and was one hide and one
virgate.1 It is situated in the far south-west of the parish. The
parish boundary passes through Hopton, but the farm of Hopton Sollers is within
Avenbury. Hopton Sollers was described by Silas Taylor, c1640, as ‘the
town on the hillside’. This was the seat of the Nicholetts family of
whom the most famous was Col. Gilbert Nicholetts who was A.D.C. to the Duke of
Marlborough, and served with him in all his battles except one, when he had
leave of absence to be married.
4
On
Sunday, 15th April, a successful field day was held, led by Miss Rosamund
Hickling and about thirty-five members and friends were present. The first
visit was to Avenbury Court by kind permission of Mr. and Mrs. Palmer.
There, looking down the valley towards Bromyard, the farm of Little Froome and
Little Froome Mill were pointed out. An old road runs through Little
Froome, past the mill to Avenbury Court. In 1797 it was proposed to put a
turnpike gate across the end of a certain lane, leading into the town, at the
Elms from a place called Little Froome, from or near a certain garden in
possession of …Corbett to the opposite land in possession of Delabere Walker,
surgeon. This lane was used by many coming to market from the Frome
valley. 5
The mill is an 18th-century brick building, now a dangerous ruin. It
finished its days grinding animal feed for local farmers and for Messrs J.W.
Williams, and finally ceased work in 1920. The iron overshot wheel went
the way of so many water-whee1s, going for scrap metal in the second World War.
Avenbury
Court, SO 657526, is an interesting house which seems to have been much rebuilt.
From the outside it appears c1800. However, downstairs there are heavy
beams with wide chamfers and the whole of the ground floor seems c1600.
Upstairs appears to be Georgian. A large vaulted cellar extends under the
dining room and parlour. There is an outside kitchen with bake oven, a
large timber-framed granary over stone-based barn, dated early 18th century by
Mr Homes, and two adjoining circular brick hop kilns dated c1860-1880 by Mr
Homes.
The
party then walked down the road towards the church, noting the stone-walled
fishpool adjacent to the farmhouse, now dry. The fields just south of the
road are called Upper Pound Meadow and Pound Hopyard on the Tithe Map. The
Brook House was pointed out, SO 662524. This is a white house with
slate-hipped roof, c1800, and seems all one build. Sale particulars in the
Herefordshire Record Office dated 1840 describe the Brook House as being the
‘manor or reputed manor of Avenbury’. It was sold by Edward
Stillingfleet Cayley. The Stillingfleet family had held the manor for about 200
years. Dr. Edward Stillingfleet, who purchased it, was bishop of
Worcester. 4
It seems that this family after building the Brook House may have possibly put a
bailiff in the Court, which was later sold separately.
The
rectory lying between Avenbury Court and the church was not marked on the Tithe
Map. At that time it lay beside the road leading from Bromyard to Avenbury
Church, SO 660532, and was built as the result of a suit, heard in the Exchequer
in 1682, in which Thomas Kettleby, vicar of Avenbury, was plaintiff and Richard
Corbett who lived at the Greave estate, the impropriator of the tithes, was
defendant. 6
The
church is now in a ruinous state. There is an unbuttressed west tower with
pyramid roof going to pieces. Pevsner suggests that the arch towards the
nave makes an early 13th-century date likely. The nave has disappeared.
There are Norman windows still to be seen in the chancel.
We
then proceeded to Lower Venn, SO 665506, by kind permission of Mrs. Yates and
looked round this very fine house. It was originally a large timber-framed
house of the 16th century. The back and side walls of the house have since
been rebuilt in stone and the front plastered or roughcast. The early wide
chamfered ceiling beams can still be seen in the hall (now dining-room), parlour
wing, kitchen and the cellar which is under the parlour. It is possible
that the hall was intended to be open to the roof but if so was very soon made
into two storeys. Another small room with a moulded beam and leading out
of the kitchen was added in the 17th century. The timber-framed farm
building with access to the house was also built to the end of that century.
Circa 1800 the original cross passage was widened to make the present hallway.
The farm buildings are extensive with a particularly large and interesting barn.
Large
fishpools lie just to the south-east of the house. A field, SO 666507, is
called Church Croft on the Tithe Map. There is a very deep hollow way
running north-west from Lower Venn and in the field immediately west of the
farmhouse there are some ill-defined earthworks and another hollow way which
continues westwards from the farm.
We
then continued to Munderfield Court, by kind permission of Mr. and Mrs. Eckley.
House platforms are visible in the orchard immediately south-east of the house,
and on the west side of the old road leading south from the Court there are
three slight hollows which Miss Hickling suggested were robbed house platforms.
A field at Munderfield Court Farm, SO 647506, was called Big and Little Castle
Field on the Tithe Map, but any earthworks have been p1oughed out.
Some
of us then finished the afternoon by visiting the deserted medieval village
discovered last year near the Grove, Brockharnpton, SO 696556. Although
now in the parish of Brockhampton, the land on which this deserted settlement
lies was, until the Local Government Board reorganization of parish boundaries
in 1894, in the parish of Linton. There is a well-defined hollow way with
house platforms, some of which have been robbed to repair the dam of a large
stone-walled pond, the Grove Pool. The pool narrows at one end and it was
suggested by Mr. Homes that this was a decoy. The course of the leat from
the Grove Pool to Brockhampton Mill is still clearly marked. In an effort
to find documentary evidence for a village on this site, the c1285 survey of the
manor of Bromyard was examined. The scribes appear to have covered the
present parishes of Norton, Brockhampton, Linton and Winslow in that order.
They recorded seventy-four free landholders and sixty-six customary landholders.
The following run of names in Brockhampton and Linton could be indicative:
John of Brocamptone, Roger Lechlewis, Roger the Justice, Margerie of Stobinersh,
Hugo of Stobinersh, Robert of Brocamptone, Roger of Evesham (who held Clater),
William Kymole, Matilda of Stobinersh, Walter of Stobinersh. When
elsewhere in the survey there are several people having the same place name for
a surname, it is of a known centre of settlement within the manor, e.g. Keephill,
Hodgebatch, Winslow, etc. It therefore seems possible that Stobinersh may
have been the name of this village.
8
We
would like once again to thank Miss Hickling for leading the field day, and also
the many farmers and householders in Avenbury who have, so kindly allowed us to
look round their houses and farms during the year and especially Mr. and Mrs.
Palmer, Mrs. Yates, Mr. and Mrs. Eckley and Mr. and Mrs. Boulcott of Home House
Farm, Brockhampton, whose farms were all visited by the party on the field day.
2.
J. Duncumb, Collections towards the history and antiquities of the County of
Hereford (1812),II, 23.
3.
Duncumb, 21.
4.
C.J. Robinson, Mansions and Manors.
5.
Bromyard: A local history, 103.
6.
Duncumb, 26.
7.
Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club (1918), lvi.
8.
I should like to thank Mrs P. Williams for supplying this information and also
for writing the report on Lower Venn farmhouse.
------------------------------
LOOKING
AT BUILDINGS IN CRADLEY
Philip
and Ruth Nichols
On
Sunday, 6th May, Mr Tonkin took a party to various buildings in Cradley.
First a visit was paid to Seed Farm, by kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Pugh.
This is a most interesting moated farmhouse which today presents an intriguing
puzzle. Do the thick stone walls cover a timber-frame building; does the
large chimney stack opening to two fireplaces in separate rooms replace an open
fireplace in an original central hall; was there a partition in the present
service wing; and at which end was the parlour? A search in the roof may
answer some questions. The diagonal nibbed chimneys, the chimney starting
at the upper floor level and the adjoining barn with hop treading hole were
interesting, as was the large detached barn, which may once have been two
separate buildings.
Mr.
and Mrs. N.L. Harris welcomed us to Upper Vinesend Farm, a recent reconstruction
of a ruined l6th-century house with herring-bone timbering. The open hall
plan has been kept and many unusual carpenters’ marks are clearly visible.
This must have been an old site and the original house had a hall and
undercroft, which is now sealed off.
We
then proceeded to Hill House Farm, the home of Brig. and Mrs. G.W. Goschen, and
first explored the barns which included interesting base cruck and king post
constructions. The house has much to offer; a very handsome staircase the
handrail having a finger and a thumb moulding on opposite sides. A plaster
ceiling included an oak leaf motif which might indicate Stuart sympathies.
A large fireplace with a bake oven to one side and a grain drying oven on the
other fill one wall. The later Regency room was memorable.
Next
to Cradley Church - a Norman church reconstructed by Giles Gilbert Scott in the
19th century but still retaining a 14th-century window with its characteristic
eye on either side of the cusping. A pleasant wide church with no chancel
arch but a lovely Norman tower with interior timber structure thought to be
designed to carry the bells.
The
black and white village hall was once a school with perhaps an upper floor.
The exterior is very picturesque but the only interior feature to be noted were
the dragon beams supporting the upper floor overhang.
We
then went on to look at typical black and white houses in Cradley’s well-kept
village. Apart from a number of pleasing houses, there were others that
had been brought up to standard by liberal use of black and white paint.
The
Society thanks Mr. and Mrs. Pugh, Mr. and Mrs. Harris and Brig. and Mrs. Goschen
for so generously allowing us into their homes, and also Cradley Church and
village hall authorities for their kind co-operation.
