Herefordshire

Herefordshire Historical Research

Herefordshire was established as a shire by the early 11th century. Its position on the Welsh border gave it a marcher character: subject to Welsh raiding and partly garrisoned by Norman lords in the decades after the Conquest.

Herefordshire is a county of river valleys, orchards, and hop yards, lying between the Malvern Hills to the east and the Black Mountains and Welsh border to the west. The River Wye meanders through it in broad loops, passing the county town of Hereford and the meadows that inspired Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. The county's black-and-white timber-framed villages are among England's most picturesque. Hereford Cathedral contains the Mappa Mundi — a medieval world map of the 13th century — and one of the finest chained libraries in existence. The county's cider orchards were already noted in the medieval period and remain a defining feature of its agricultural character.

England's 39 historic counties, established between the 9th and 12th centuries, are the framework through which English local history, legal records, and landscape have been organised for a thousand years. Most survive today as ceremonial counties, their boundaries deeply embedded in place identity.

Research Herefordshire's History

An Aubrey report for a specific location in Herefordshire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.