Friday – Broome-Hopesay – The sky is overcast, the hills misty. I start from Broome station on the Heart of Wales line and head north. The track reaches the road by a probable early 20th century house. Opposite is a short terrace of Victorian houses. Other houses here are mainly late 20th century. A stone barn by the road is, I thought, all that is left of a former farm, but the old map shows it part of just two small buildings. The village pub The Engine and Tender is abandoned and overgrown. The lane leaves the village passing sheep and cattle pastures. A lone, heavily laden apple tree stands between two of the pastures. Swallows fly over heading south. A Red Kite passes. Medlicott is a large early 20th century house set in large grounds with apple and pear trees. Two tall roughly hewn stone pillars stand where a gate once guarded a long lane which crossed the River Clun to reach Coston Manor, quite some distance away.
The road enters Aston on Clun. A pair of modern houses have a rose plaque on them, suggesting they were built during a jubilee or maybe even the last coronation? Opposite is the village hall and shop which is busy. A large house in the Victorian Gothic style stands on the junction. Round the corner on the main road is a completely circular house, a late 18th century estate house. A short distance along the road is the Kangaroo Inn which also has a vaguely Gothic look, but was built around 1740, becoming an inn around a century later. A sign suggests it was named after the SS Kangaroo, an Atlantic cable runner, sailing in 1859. A tall wall hides the old Court House, a late 18th century farmhouse, which is under renovation.
Beside the River Clun is the Arbor Tree, a legendary sole survivor of those decorated by King Charles II, called Oak Apple Day, to celebrate the restoration of the monarchy on the 29th May 1660. However, it is believed the dressing of a tree here may stretch back to times when Celtic shepherds around here dressed trees in fertility rites. The tree was dressed on Arbor Day 1786 for the marriage of Squire Marston of Oaker to Mary Carter of Sibdon who left money to ensure that it was dressed annually. The present tree was planted in 1995. Further along the road is the Toll Cottage and the old Malthouse. The latter was a mid 17th century house, latterly partly converted to a malthouse, then a shop and has now reverted to domestic use. Opposite hidden by dense woodland is Aston Hall, built around 1830, it was requisitioned as an auxiliary hospital during WWI. It is now apartments.
A bridge crosses the River Clun and a lane heads north. Past modern houses and a single older building, then finally the old school, founded by Miss Beddoes in 1853 and closed in 1991, and schoolhouse on the edge of the village. Aston Hill rises steeply to the east with a single white painted house under the eaves of a wood. A small flock of squeaking Long-tailed Tits flies over. A Robin sings from the hedgerow. The variety of trees in this hedgerow suggests it is quite a few hundred years old. A small flock of House Martins feed high overhead.
A short detour onto a footpath which leads to a small bridge over the River Clun. The bridge rests on old stone walls. Nearby is a weir built of the same construction. Tumbled down stones lay in the river. A Nuthatch calls from the trees. Back on the lane, imposing gate pillars mark the entrance to Hesterworth. The house stands on the far edge of a small but deep valley through which the river flows. It was built by the Beddoes family and later acquired by the Habershons. Major Habershon (1887-1954) had one of the finest amateur collections of daffodils in the country. A short distance on is a large house, Hesterhaven and, down a sheep drive, a smaller Victorian house. A private road leads to Perry Gutter, a small valley in the side of Hopesay Hill. A Great Spotted Woodpecker chips nearby.
The lane enters Hopesay, a small village, past Fairmead, a large house and the equally large Fernhill. Larger still is The Post House, red brick with lattice windows. Hopesay Farmhouse is 17th century, partly timber-framed. An extensive group of barns and granary have all been converted into dwellings. The Old Farmhouse has a cast iron gate with “A Goodly Heritage” in iron letters. It was built in the late 18th century and most of its first century and a half owned by the Beddoes family. The “Hopesay rents” subsidised the writing career of Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849). Nearby, a stump has a fine growth of bracket fungi. Hopesay House is another large building, previously called Oakfield.
Back to the centre of the village where a short lane leads to the four storey old Rectory, inevitably another very large house. Domesday records that “Picot [de Say] held Hope, Eldric held it”. There seemed to be no church here but in 1160, a church was built on land held by the de Say family. The village was now Hope (de) Say. At Reformation, Rector John Parkes evicted the Revd Thomas Griffiths who would not take the new oath in 1534. Rector Richard Awnsham was removed and imprisoned in 1644 for serving the Royalist troops of Sir Robert Howard. In 1660, the Puritan incumbent, Clifton Stone, was evicted and Awnsham restored.
The church of St Mary is a late 12th century building, restored by William Butterfield in 1886, with a low, squat tower with large buttresses. It has “Montgomeryshire dovecote roof” consisting of two levels in a pyramid. The south doorway is typical Norman. has a late 15th century moulded arch-braced collar beam roof. A gallery is mid 19th century replacing one of 1631. The wooden pulpit is from 1897, a richly carved octagonal font is late 19th century and the altar and reredos date from 1909. A Norman font was replaced by the Victorian one and ended up in a church in Bryn which closed in 2007 and the font was returned to its home. On the west wall are the Royal Arms of George III dated 1776. The two manual pipe organ was made by Peter Conacher, and was restored in 1985 by Nicholson. However, it seems a small electric organ is used now. The east window has glass designed by Joseph Bell, dated 1858. Other glass is by by C. E. Kempe and Powell, with one window containing stained glass from the 14th century including coat-of-arms of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. Another window dates from 2012 to remember Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808), member of the Lunar Society and mentor to Humphrey Davy. A number of monuments commemorate the Beddoes family.
Back south out of the village. Common Buzzards call on the hillside, Yeo Banks. Beside two Yew trees, a footpath on the Shropshire Way heads across a field. A footbridge crosses the River Clun, then across a freshly mown meadow. It now climbs Hopesay Hill a short distance before joining the Heart of Wales Path on the edge of a wood. The sun is hot now. The path heads south, passing above a house in Perry Gutter. Across the private lane and back into woodland. There are several large clumps of rhododendron. Onto a path across the hillside. Below is Hesterworth House with a large walled kitchen garden, tiers of floral gardens and small lakes, created by the digging of clay for brick making. Another “round house”, an estate house, was here but it has been demolished. Along the edge of a conifer plantation. A Jay squawks. The hills are all pale yellow, parched by the drought.
The path is now an old track on Aston Hill heading towards Aston on Clun which lays ahead. The exposed grey-red rock is Wentnor Group sandstone, siltstone and mudstone, formed between 635 and 541 million years ago during the Ediacaran period. The track joins another which seems to be heading on up the hill. My route is still south. Past the white house seen earlier. The hillside is covered in old ant hills.
The lane joins a road, Mill Street, lined with modern bungalows. The Primitive Methodist Chapel of 1862 is now a workshop, the entrance and a window bricked up and a new large entrance created. Another circular house is in this road. The river now runs along the roadside. One house has an old stone bridge to its entrance, the others have modern concrete bridges. Aston House has an extensive range of barns and farm buildings. Four domestic ducks are in the river. Back to Broome station.
Sunday – Leominster – The sky is overcast and there is rain in the air. The usual Jackdaws seem absent but Wood Pigeons are still calling. Over the railway and onto Butts Bridge. The water level appears unchanged from last week. A pair of Magpies flying across Easters Meadow; who knows if they will bring joy or not. A pair of croaking Ravens head towards the town. Rosebay Willowherb, Great Willowherb, Creeping Thistle and White Dead-nettle grow on the edge of Brightwells’ compound. A Robin sings in riverside trees from which a Common Buzzard departs. Yarrow is still in flower on the verges of the path.
The market is much smaller this week, the forecast of rain has clearly put people off. The River Kenwater seems even shallower this week but there are still fish just downstream of Priory Bridge. The bell-ringers have set up at the Minster and the peals begin.
Monday – Croft – A decent amount of rain fell overnight. The sky is still covered by grey clouds although patches of blue are appearing in the west. A large stack of mature tree trunks lay beside the long drive to Croft; they look like they are mainly Ash. Also beside the driveway with a flock of black horned sheep. A Nuthatch whoops in trees by the car park.
Robins sing across the Fishpool Valley. A male Blackcap ticks from raspberry canes beside the track. A Common Buzzard flies off calling across the valley. Another replies from further down. The raspberry canes have spread extensively down the hillside. Purple flowered Angelica stands in the canes. It seems there are ticking Blackcaps everywhere. Unsurprisingly, the water level in the pools is low. A considerable amount of felling has taken place at the end of the valley and the path up towards Croft Ambrey is now exposed. Another calling Common Buzzard flies up the valley whilst two more hang on the wind high above. Two croaking Ravens fly over.
Up the forestry track. There are blackberry bushes everywhere laden with fruit. I gather a punnet quickly. Flies are nuisance. There is a surprising call from a Tawny Owl deep in the woods. A Speckled Wood butterfly flits up the hillside. The path from this track to the main track across the hillside has been cleared and widened. Freshly cut Ash branches are piled up either side of the path. A Chiffchaff calls in the Willow saplings below the hill-fort.
Up the slope to the hill-fort. Blackbirds fly up from the path and Nuthatches calling the trees. The growl of heavy machinery comes from the quarry far below. The wind is far stronger up here on the hill-fort. More Blackcaps are tickingin the undergrowth on the main rampart. Fat Wood Pigeons clatter off out of a Hawthorn bush.
A sizeable heard of young black cattle are gathered around the path down towards the Spanish Chestnut field. The conifer grew out of the branch stump of a dead tree next to the path and had disappeared over recent years appears to have regenerated. Views over the Arrow Valley and towards the Brecon Beacons are gauzy. The Golden Jubilee Spanish chestnut, one of 50 great British trees, looks in fine fettle covered with leaves. Another large Spanish Chestnut next to it has one broken branch laying out from the side carrying leaves but the rest of the tree is dead. A third Spanish Chestnut fifteen yards away is in trouble, most of its leaves are already brown. The quarry pond is completely dried out and covered in grass and Amphibious Bistort.
Wednesday – Bodenham Lake – Overhead there is thin high cloud and blue sky but to both west and east there are heavier, grey clouds. Robins sing. The only flowers along the track now is Himalayan Balsam. On the high hedgerow are blue sloes, shiny blackberries, scarlet haws, vermilion hips, black Wayfaring-Tree berries and tassels of Old Man’s Beard. There is just a single Coot around the eastern islands in the sailing bay. Three Tufted Duck glide past. Mallard squabble at the eastern end. A Grey Heron squawks as it flies in. Four more Grey Herons and several Mute Swans, one with young, on the west end islands. A flock of Long-tailed Tits moves through the trees beside the sailing compound. Another Grey Heron is on one of the big islands.
The grey clouds are moving in from the west and it is darkening. The wind is rising. A small dragonfly darts past. Along the meadow Red Bartsia is in flower. Into the hide. 29 cormorants are in the trees, another is on the spit. Greylags are on the south side of the lake along with four more Grey Herons and a Little Egret. A winter-plumaged Great Crested Grebe is out on the water. At the western end are a pair of Mute Swans, a small flock of a dozen Coot, a Great Crested Grebe, a pair of Moorhens and a number of sleeping Mallard. On the scrape is an eclipsed drake Mallard whose head is just beginning to darken and new grey feathers appearing on its back. A Kingfisher is chasing another around one of the new reed beds on the southern side. Four cackling Canada Geese fly low over the water then rise over the western trees and continue on down the Lugg valley.
A pair of Carrion Crows and a Ring-necked Pheasant are on the refuge meadow. Back along the meadow where Field Maples are turning yellow. A branch heavily laden with cider apples has broken, possibly on an Ellis Bitter variety.
Thursday – Leominster – The sky is overcast but the clouds are shining brightly. A breeze blows. Across the Grange to the sound of the autumnal Robin song. Into the churchyard. A Nuthatch is on the ground under a Silver Birch then dashes up into the branches. A Chiffchaff calls. Like many fruiting trees this year the boughs of two Rowans are bent under the weight of berries. Down The Priory to the footbridge over the very shallow River Kenwater. Along Paradise Walk to Mill Street. A police van hurtles past at great speed, blue lights flashing. What the Kenwater, the Lugg under Ridgemoor Bridge is shallow and clear its surface rippled by numerous Pond Skaters. Another flashing and howling police vehicle speeds past.
Across the A49 and onto the track to Eaton Hill. All the fields here have been harvested. A Dunnock flies along the hedgerow. Up the track that climbs the hillside. A Robin sings in an Ash sapling. The sun now shines bright and warm. A Red Admiral and a Small White butterfly flit past. Now a Speckled Wood flies over the verge flowers that are all in seed. Sheep feed in the solar farm field. The bird scarer, the cries of raptors, has ceased.
The large field on Eaton Hill is set to maize with extensive set aside strip. There are all sorts of plants here, some escapes from earlier crops. Much of the ground is covered by Fat Hen, with a few Perennial Chicory, Creeping Thistles and a tall plant, seemingly sown in rows, that resembles an amaranth. A lone Swallow flies over. I collect a few blackberries. Strings of Black Bryony berries are turning red. Back down the hillside on a newly well defined path. The old path and wooden steps now disappear into a thicket. Down past the old drovers steps of large stone slabs. At the foot of the hill, where it meets the A44, the Worcester Road the hops have ripened on a Hawthorn bush.
Down to the old section of the A44. Pears are dropping from a tree in front of the houses. I have gathered a few before and they never soften. Over the railway where the down line signal has dropped to green and in the distance, people wait on the station. The charity shops in the station yard are busy.
Home – At the end of the afternoon a slow moving thunderstorm and heavy rainfall moved through. Enough rain falls to fill all our water-butts. The day is marked by what even a resolute republican like me regards as a moment of history – Queen Elizabeth II has died.
Saturday – Kington Show – One of the largest country shows in the area, returning after the Covid enforced break. We head straight down to the animal pens where the judging is underway. It is marvellous to see young handlers hauling huge cows and bulls. The judging is an arcane affair, we have no idea what makes one animal better than another. The sheep are dominated by Ryelands, the breed developed in Leominster. There are some magnificent rams and great rotund ewes. There is a set of pig pens but they do not seem to be being shown in competition. Several have litters of piglets to the delight of younger visitors. I wonder where the chickens are but then Kay points out they will not be here because of the bird flu problem.
Some of the machinery is extraordinary stuff, costing thousands of pounds. There is also a small display of old vehicles, a considerable contrast to today’s computer controlled contraptions.
Sunday – Leominster - This morning really feels like autumn, there is a slight chill to the air and a mist covers the town. Even the Wood Pigeons seem reluctant to call. On to the railway bridge. Even here birdsong is reduced to a couple of notes or simply a squeak. Onto Butts Bridge. The water level in the River Lugg has risen marginally. The mist is thicker here. A spider’s web spans the railings of the bridge but I cannot find the weaver. Down the steps to Easters Meadow. Brightwells’ compound is hidden by mist. Numerous dew-laden spiders’ webs are in the grass or on the Dock plants. The large police horsebox in in the compound appears to be unpopular as it remains unsold.
The market is larger than last week but still the same tat. Still if some of the huge quantity of babies’, children’s and women’s clothing sells it is better than it going to landfill. The bells of the Minster are ringing. We have now of course entered a new Carolean era, as King Charles III was proclaimed yesterday. The River Kenwater is flowing deeper but I still cannot see any fish in it.
Tuesday – Home – The “meadow” which was strimmed a fortnight ago is now mown along with the rest of the lawn. It is a hard job with the mower bag requiring emptying frequently. The local Chiffchaff is still calling intermittently. Wood Pigeons are mating all over the place. I comment that I may gather the small grapes on the patio vine at the weekend but it seems a female Blackbird has other ideas and is just a couple of feet away, watching me whilst picking off a grape and swallowing it whole. It is very humid.
Wednesday – Hidcote Manor – The small hamlet of Hidcote Bartrim lies high in the northern Cotswolds. It was owned by Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire until the Priory was disbanded by Henry VIII in around 1539. In the 17th century a farm house was built passing through several hands before being inherited in early 1907 from the Freeman family by John Tucker, who had farmed there since 1873. It was advertised in The Times on 22nd June 1907 as a “valuable freehold farm comprising 287 acres”. The land would be sold with a “very substantial and picturesque farm house…… with lawns and large kitchen garden”. Lawrence Johnston, acting on behalf of his mother, Mrs Gertrude Winthrop, agreed to purchase the estate from John Tucker for £7,200. There was little existing garden, so Lawrence began to put into practice what he had learnt from studying gardening books such as The Art & Craft of Garden Making by Thomas H Mawson. The period 1907 – 1914 saw the creation of intimate garden rooms around the house, the Circle; to the south, the Fuchsia garden and the Bathing Pool Garden; and to the west, the Red Borders and the steps up to the two gazebos. The outbreak of the Great War, in which Lawrence fought, suspended progress. In 1919, Gertrude bought the farm at the end of the village road, enabling the garden to be extended to the current boundaries. This period saw the extension of the Long Walk and the creation of the Wilderness, Mrs Winthrop’s Garden, the Pillar Garden and the Rock Bank. By the early 1920s the garden design was largely complete. Lawrence’s interests then moved on to plant hunting, both for Hidcote and the new garden he was developing in the south of France (Serre de la Madone). In 1948 the National Trust acquired Hidcote. The garden is a delightful series of rooms although in many, the effects of the long, dry summer are evident. A Southern Hawker dragonfly alights on a fuschia. Pond Skaters on on the water features along with bright red Common Darters. In the house is a display of textile work by Kaffe Fassett.
Chipping Campden – A classic Cotswold town of yellow stone, oolitic Limestone. The name comes from the Old English cēping, meaning “market”, a feature of the names of a number of towns in this area. It was a wool trading centre in the Middle Ages, enjoying the patronage of wealthy wool merchants, most notably William Greville (died 1401). The High Street is lined with buildings dating from 14th to 17th centuries. One of the oldest is the Market Hall, built in 1627 by Sir Baptist Hicks in 1627 and still in use. We wander down the High Street and along Church Street passing almshouses built in 1612, by Sir Baptist Hicks for 12 pensioners and still remains in use for that purpose, to the church of St James.
St James church is one of the finest “wool” churches in England, built by the wealth of local wool merchants during the late medieval period. The earliest, considerably smaller, church on this site was erected in the Norman period, sometime before 1180. It consisted of a simple nave without aisles, short chancel, and a stolid tower. Around 1260 the Norman church was enlarged. Over the following centuries the chancel was enlarged, aisles added, and south porch built. In 1490 the nave was rebuilt in Perpendicular Gothic style, supported on the original Norman foundations. One unusual feature was a large window above the chancel arch, a rarity in English parish churches, which floods the interior with light. In 1500 the 120 feet high west tower was built. It has a ring of 8 bells, the earliest cast in 1618 and the youngest in 1737. The large east window was crafted in 1925 to commemorate soldiers who died in WWII. A glass case contains a pair of medieval altar frontals, made around 1500, and a cope, made about a century earlier. In the sanctuary is the tomb of Sir Thomas Smythe (died 1593), Lord of the Manor of Campden and first Governor of the East India Company. In the Noel Chantry is the memorial of Sir Baptist Hicks. Hicks gave money for the pulpit and lectern, and also gave £200 to re-roof the nave. The monument is built of marble columns supporting a canopy. On the wall nearby is a memorial to Penelope Noel (died 1633), daughter of Edmund Noel, Viscount Campden. On the chancel arch are two Arts and Crafts copper plaques in memory of several local men who died of dysentery in the Boer War and one who died in a torpedo attack off St Abbs Head in 1914.
Near the church are the remains of Campden House, built by Hicks some time after 1608; he added the manor and gained the title 1st Viscount Campden. The manor was destroyed by Royalists in 1645 during the English Civil War possibly to prevent it falling into the hands of the Parliamentarians. All that now remains are a gatehouse and two Jacobean banqueting houses. There is also the Court Barn now a museum celebrating the Arts and Crafts tradition of the area. In the early 20th century, the town became known as a centre for the Cotswold Arts and Crafts Movement, following the move of Charles Robert Ashbee and the members of his Guild and School of Handicraft from the East End of London in 1902.
Rollright Stones – This complex of megalithic monuments lies to the east of Chipping Campden on the edge of the Cotswold hills. They span nearly 2000 years of Neolithic and Bronze age development and each site dates from a different period. The oldest, the Whispering Knights dolmen, is early Neolithic, circa 3,800-3,500 BCE, the King’s Men stone circle is late Neolithic, circa 2,500 BCE; and the King Stone is early to middle Bronze Age, circa 1,500 BCE. They Stones are made of natural boulders of the local Jurassic oolitic limestone. The origins of the name is somewhat uncertain. One interpretation is that it is derived from the Old English Hrolla and landriht, the land-right or property of Hrolla. Flint blades indicate that there was Mesolithic activity in the area.
The Whispering Knights is a “portal dolmen” burial chamber that consists of four upright stones and a large fallen capstone. It was believed to be part of a long barrow, but excavations in the 1980s suggested that it is more likely to have been free-standing.
The King’s Men is a circle of seventy-odd heavily weathered stones set in a rather irregular ring about 31 metres across. There may have originally been over 100 stones but some have been removed over the centuries and the present ones were replaced in their current position in the 1880s.
Immediately to the north-east of the King’s Men, across the road, there was an early Bronze Age round cairn 17metres across with a central chamber (of which the capstone peeps through the grass) set exactly at the top of the ridge. There was at least one other Bronze Age barrow nearby and excavations in the 1980s revealed human cremations marked by wooden posts and others inserted into the top of the cairn. The King Stone is most likely to have been erected around 1500 BCE as a permanent memorial to the burial ground rather than being an outlier to the much older Stone Circle.
A trackway and single ditch in the field between the Whispering Knights and the King’s Men are visible as crop marks on air photographs. Pottery from small-scale excavations suggest that the ditches are part of a late Bronze Age or early Iron Age field system c.1000-500 BCE. The trackway was heading towards a ditched enclosure also known from air photography and geophysical survey. In the Roman period a new agricultural settlement was established west of the King Stone. In the mid 19th century stone quarrying near the Stones revealed typical grave goods of an early Saxon cemetery, circa 700 CE, including a cremation urn, beads and a bracelet. In 2015, excavation revealed the burial of a young woman in her twenties with grave goods including a long-handled bronze pan and traces of a wooden box with silver mounts. The cemetery is at the junction of what later became three parishes.
The Stones take their names from a legend about a king and his army who were crossing the Cotswolds when they met a witch who challenged the king saying, “Seven long strides shalt thou take and if Long Compton thou canst see, King of England thou shalt be”. On his seventh stride a mound rose up obscuring the view, and the witch turned them all to stone: the king became the King Stone; his army the King’s Men; and his knights the Whispering Knights (apparently plotting treachery or others say, praying). The witch became an elder tree, supposedly still in the hedge: if it is cut the spell is broken the Stones will come back to life.
Thursday – Hook Norton – We stayed overnight in this Oxfordshire village just to the east of the Cotswolds. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 917 the village is recorded as Hocneratun. It also records records that a Viking army from Northampton raided the Hook Norton area in 913. It probably comes from Hocca’s Farm.The village had a parish church by 922. The Domesday Book records Hochenartone having 76 villagers and two mills. The Taxatio Ecclesiastica of 1291 records it as Hoke Norton. The manor was given to a Saxon, Wigod, whose daughter married Sir Robert d’Oily. His annual rent was a lace cloth – a “doily”. Leland noted that around 1540 there was a deer park here owned by the king, Henry VIII. The park had previously belonged to a Chaucer and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk.
Last night we had a few pints of beer from Hook Norton Brewery in The Sun Inn. This morning we park in the High Street. The village is formed of four neighbourhoods: East End, Scotland End (in the west), Down End (in the centre) and Southrop (in the south). The High Street has many 17th century houses in the yellow Cotswold limestone. Opposite The Sun is the church of St Peter.
The church, on the site of the earlier one, has Romanesque chancel and north transept, a late 12th century transitional south transept and south aisle. The nave and north aisle are early English Decorated style and the Perpendicular clerestory and west tower 14th century. There are patches of wall paintings uncovered under the thick layer of white-washed plaster. The rood was removed in the reign of Elizabeth I and is now over the south door. By the door is the village fire engine. In 1671, Oxford Justices decreed every church must have a fire engine. This one was probably built by Richard Newsom of Cloth Fair, London. Nearby is a wonderful Norman font with carvings depicting Eve holding an apple whilst Adam toils, a two headed serpent, Sagittarius about to shoot Aquarius to prevent him flooding the earth, Aries above the Tree of Life. The east window is dedicated the Revd John Rushton who was the rector from 1841 for over 60 years. In the south aisle is the war memorial and a window dedicated to the fallen by John Henry Dearle of Morris & Co.
On along the High Street. Hook Norton Baptist Church is among the oldest in Britain, having been founded 1640. The present building is Georgian, built in 1781. Hook Norton Brewery was founded in 1849 and is an important architectural example of a Victorian tower brewery in which all the stages of the brewing process flow logically from floor to floor; mashing at the top, boiling in the middle, fermentation and racking at the bottom. Local deliveries are still undertaken by horse and dray.
Great Rollright – A quick visit to the church of St Andrew which consists of a central west tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisle, south porch, and chantry chapel. The building dates from the 12thcentury with additions and alterations over the following three centuries. It was restored by G E Street in 1852.
The south porch is 14th century, with a row of 47 carved heads of rosettes, men, women, and animal figures around the roofline. Above the door of the porch is a sundial dated to 1658. The doorway is Norman and a gem. The double columns are topped with two-story capitals, which then give way to a double arch with two levels of traditional Norman chevron patterns interspersed with elongated “beakheads”. The tympanum looks almost Celtic, or perhaps Arabic, with circular shield patterns and zigzag designs, in the midst of which lies a figure in a shroud. Above the figure a fish eats, or maybe, spits out, a human head. The rood screen is painted, renewed in 1851. The font is 14th century. In the chancel is the “Batersby Brass”, a memorial to a James Batersby, rector of St Andrews, who died in 1522. There is a ring of six bells but sadly, they have not been rung for some forty years because of damage to the tower.
In the churchyard is a stump and base of the mediaeval cross. By the early 20th century lych gate is the grave of John Withers, a shepherd, who died at the age of 104. There is also a grave near the porch of Jessie Timms who was 105.
Batsford Arboretum – This large arboretum and garden centre lays on a slope just before the village of Bourton on the Hill. In 1886 the estate was inherited by Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, later to become the 1st Lord Redesdale in 1905. During the 1860s he worked for the foreign office in Russia, Japan and China and was an accomplished linguist and recognised authority on Chinese and Japanese culture and politics. On inheriting the estate, Mitford moved permanently to the Cotswolds and between 1886 and the early 1890s, he knocked down the old Georgian mansion which stood in the grounds and built a large neo-Tudor house, designed by Earnest George (possibly with Harold Peto). He all but erased any trace of the old layout of the garden and created a wild garden of naturalistic planting derived from his observations in China and Japan. By now an accomplished plants man and authority on bamboos, he created one of the foremost collections of the time – some of which remain to this day. He also built the 600 metre artificial watercourse which runs down the western side of the gardens as well as other features such as the hermit’s cave, rockeries, the thatched cottage and a Japanese Rest House. There are also several bronze statues near the Rest House including Buddha, two Japanese deer and a mythical beast called Foo Dog with its paws raised on a cloisonné enamelled globe. The Buddha and deer were imported in 1900 by Mitford – now claiming to be a Buddhist, and are said to represent Buddha practising his first sermon in a deer park.
Following his death in 1916, Batsford Park was inherited by David Mitford who moved into the house with his infamous family. However, the costs associated with running such a large house meant they were forced to sell it after World War I. The estate was bought by Gilbert Alan Hamilton Wills, later the 1st Lord Dulverton who, along with his wife, Lady Victoria took a great interest in the gardens, particularly the more formal areas and the walled garden. During the Second World War and in the years following the wild garden became overgrown and fell into neglect until Frederick Anthony Hamilton Wills succeeded his father as the 2nd Lord Dulverton in 1956. He introduced collections of Birch, Maple, Oak, Ash, Lime, Magnolia, Mountain Ash, Pine, Fir and Spruce.
Our walk through the gardens takes us past many fine trees with a number of Acers just beginning to turn into their autumnal glory. There seem to be Robins everywhere and a few Swallows overhead. The water features have suffered from the drought and by the foot of the hill are almost completely dry.
Sunday – Leominster – There is a decidedly autumnal feel about the air. It is cloudy and cool. Wood Pigeons sit silently on television aerials and there is the occasional chack of a Jackdaw. Onto Butts Bridge. The water level in the River Lugg has fallen again. Someone has made a fire out of logs on the large exposed shingle bank.
Apples are falling in the Millennium orchard. Into to the churchyard. A Grey Squirrel bounces over the grass. Jackdaws, Magpies and Wood Pigeons are calling here. Robins are singing intermittently. A Blackbird and a Wren cry out alarm calls. Across the Grange where numerous brown patches in the grass are witness to the lack of rainfall this year.
We both go down to the market. Unfortunately, there are few plant sellers there, so Kay cannot find the bedding plants she wants. We do buy some plums, Guinevere, a very late variety we are told and some sweetcorn.
Home – The mower is dragged over the orchard area, not easy as it is uneven with stumps of old trees, but the result is quite reasonable. Some pears and apples are harvested. There has already been quite a leaf drop, especially the hollies and laurel, so I sweep them up and put them in the leaf mould container. I try to remove as many apples and pears with Brown Rot as possible, it apparently has been a bad year for this disease. A number of bunches of small grapes have ripened on the big vine on the patio. They are very sharp, but I will harvest them tomorrow for jelly. Quinces are beginning to fall from the ornamental bush in the passage. There are some strange looking bunches of four or five all joined together on the bush.
Wednesday – Bodenham – Dawn was dark with a glow of fiery orange in the east. A few hours later there are a few patches of blue between the clouds. Robins are singing. Many trees have yellowing leaves now, autumn has arrived. Hips and haws and the berries on the Wayfarers tree have ripened to brilliant red. Old Man’s Beard has yet to adopt its feathery look. A Mute Swan with three cygnets, several Mallard, a single Tufted Duck, a single Coot and a Little Egret, which flies off, are at the eastern end of the lake. Another Mute Swan is on one of the islands. The Little Egret flies to the westernmost island where there is another. Twelve Cormorants fly over.
It appears that someone has gathered all the sloes from the bushes. A couple of Field Mushrooms grow in the meadow. Into the Alder copse. Fresh Varicoloured Bracket fungus, Coriolus versicolor, is growing on old logs, displacing last year’s now dessicated growth.
The lake’s water level remains low, the water green with algae and its surface scummy. A pair of winter-plumaged Great Crested Grebes are on the water to the east of the hide. A Moorhen picks its way around the edge of the scrape. The screeching and squealing of a Water Rail comes from the reed bed. The lake is very quiet; there are about half a dozen Mute Swans scattered around with a few Tufted Duck, only a couple of Canada Geese, a half a dozen Coot and another Great Crested Grebe. Seventeen Cormorants are in the trees. A Grey Heron flies off from the southern side. A single Mallard appears from the reed beds. A cock Ring-necked Pheasant stalks the grass in front of the hide. A yelping Canada Goose flies in but receives no reply. A number of the Cormorants fly off southwards. Small skeins of Canada Geese can be heard flying up from the fields to the south before they come into sight. Carrion Crows gather at the top of the island trees, then depart. A few more Tufted Duck fly in. A short time later the main Canada Goose flock over fifty arrives. Another couple of dozen fly in, whiffling furiously to lose height. A drake Mandarin Duck flies across the lake disappearing into the northwestern corner. Wasps land on the outside of the hide to scrape the wood fibre to build their nests. Still more Canada Geese arrive with the flock now well past one hundred birds. As the flock builds up, so does the noise level.
Back to the meadow fresh mole hills have appeared along beside the hedgerow. Numerous tunnels have appeared through the grass under the new thicket of Blackthorn, probably created by Badgers. Apples continue to fall in the orchards.
Friday – Dilwyn-Burton – Overnight rain has left everywhere soaked and the air misty. There is plenty of blue sky now and it is warming up. Karen Court stands next to the church. It is a large timber-framed building, formerly a farm building consisting of a substantial 17th century house, The Great House, a barn, cow shed and tallet (from the Welsh taflodan, an attic) and a granary, now all converted into 19 homes. Along a lane past the old Police Station, the old 17th century schoolhouse and the noisy primary school, built in the early 19th century as Dilwyn Voluntary Contribution School. Past modern housing and a solid Georgian house. A former council estate stands on the Glebelands, meaning land owned by the parish. A small group of modern timber-clad houses stand opposite a far older house and orchard. Comfrey grows alongside a deep ditch. The 20th century housing continues interspersed with older properties.
Dilwyn Common consists of a large farm, Common Farm, with an older farmhouse and a number of 20th century buildings. A pair of Swallows sit on wires. A flock of House Sparrows fly out of a Bramble loaded with shiny blackberries. The lane continues as before, 20th century and older buildings intermingled. There are Wood Pigeons everywhere. Streams drain the fields flowing east towards the River Arrow. The lane has entered Sollars Dilwyn. Very tall apple trees lay beyond the farm yard loaded with fruit. A Chiffchaff calls from a large hedgerow. A short distance on another calls from a large Ash by the sewage pumping station.
The lane passes a large field of brassicas. A Robin sings from the top of a wooden telegraph pole. Yet another Chiffchaff is calling nearby. A lane heads north beside Corner House. The lane divides at Middleton Hall, thought to have a 14th century core, and Bedford House, a former farmhouse, into two legs running up to the A4112, the road to Hay on Wye. From across a field comes the sound of the extractor fans of Tyrrells crisp manufactory. The gates to the garden of the 14th century Yew Cottage has been blacksmithed in parts of horse tackle. Acorns are scattered across the road under a venerable Oak. Hops climb a hedge.
The lane crosses the main road between Pitch farm, with a 17th century farmhouse and Pitch Cottage, a small timber-framed cottage with a thatched roof of a similar date. My route continues along a very narrow seemingly seldom used lane. It crosses Tippet’s Brook via Tippet’s Ford although the water level is far below the level of the road, but there is a footbridge for when when fa greater flow occurs. A mill race runs alongside the lane to Burton Mill. The mill is referred to in documents in 1364 and ceased as a mill during the Second World War. The lane rises through Lower Burton and comes to a T-junction at Little Burton, an early 20th century house. Long-tailed Tits squeak as they fly through the trees. At a nearby cottage, Pigmore, a Border Collie barks excitedly at me. Scarlet berries of Black Bryony climb through a hedge.
The lane passes Pigmore Common. Squashed damsons lie in the road. A few apple trees, heavy with fruit, are in a field being grazed by horses. A Great Spotted Woodpecker chips above. Two Red Admiral butterflies dance past. A footpath leads to Burton Court but I continue along the road. A late Victorian house stands on its own. Two kissing gates with no obvious path between them and not marked on the map, are part of the Eardisland Memorial Walks. This one is dedicated to Pte John Lewis of the Herefordshire Regiment who fell in the First World War. A large mouldering Boletus fungus grows under the hedge, the surface of its cap completely eaten away by slugs.
At a road junction I head south. All around are green fields with hedgerows and Oak trees. The ambience is disturbed by an annoying helicopter like a giant mosquito buzzing round and round. (I learn later it is an Dauphin helicopter, used by the SAS, carrying out a training activity known as “touch-and-go” where pilots come in to land, but take off again without coming to a stop.) Bidney farm lays across the fields, a 16th century timber-framed farmhouse and a similar 17th century dovecote that was probably moved in the early 20th century. There is also a stone barn with conical, cowled drying roofs. A modern bridge crosses Tippet’s Brook. On the edge of a field is a long corrugated iron barn with a chimney. Opposite a large old orchard has trees with a mixed crop some heavy with fruit, some with barely any apples at all. Next to it is a modern orchard but again with a mixed amount of fruit this season.
Another T-junction. To the east is a house strangely called The Plateau. My route is to the west. Now a lane heads south. Another large modern orchard has a fairly mediocre crop. At the end of the orchard is a fine late Georgian house, Buzzard House. There is a fine view south of Dinmore Hill and Robin Hood’s Butts. A private driveway leads to Henwood Farm, described in the listings as “a small late 18th century country house with attached stables and hop kilns. The lane comes to the A4112. Cross the main road and into Dilwyn. It transpires there is an underpass to cross the road but it was well hidden from the other side. A metal plate is set into the gate post of the church states. “Lemster 6 miles”. Route
Saturday – Into the garden to change the paper on the floor of the hen house. Suddenly realise the Warren is not there, then see the gap dug under the bottom of the fence, next to where I reinforced it with bricks. The Fox has been back. I had noticed that the Warren was not always going into the house at night and being locked out by the automatic door. I will need to ensure the entire base of the fence is blocked with bricks.
The equinox has just passed so it is now autumn. I have been collecting cider apples and press the first three gallons this morning. In the early evening I pick all the pears from the Doyenne.
Sunday – Leominster – A bright morning with a decided chill in the air. A quick scrump to gather cider apples; these are all Tom Putts. After breakfast it is off down the road to the sound of Jackdaws. On to Butts Bridge. The water level in the River Lugg remains very low. A Dipper flies up from the shingle bank just downstream from the bridge to the edge of the river where rocks have been piled up and held in by stakes and fencing. It then starts to sing, the first time I think I have ever heard the full song. Few minutes later it flies off downstream. Someone has dumped a pretty decent bicycle on the shingle. I would rescue it but in reality there is little chance of me getting down and back up the bank again.
A Great Spotted Woodpecker chips in trees beside the A49. Easters Meadow is saturated with dew and spiders’ webs are white with condensation. Himalayan Balsam is still in flower. Along past Brightwells’ compound. Here the grass has a touch of frost. A Robin sings brightly. A large Rose briar has a heavy crop of brilliantly scarlet hips.
Over the A44 and onto the track between the River Lugg and the petrol station. Three Mallard are walking up the river as it is so shallow. A moth flies around and around before landing briefly on a Stinging Nettle. It is possibly a November Moth, Epirrita dilutata. The market is busy. Back along Paradise Walk. The River Kenwater is like the Lugg, very low. No fish can be seen. A number of Robins are singing loudly and strongly. On to Priory Bridge. A Grey Heron stands a short distance upstream in the middle of the river. The bells of the Priory start to ring.
Wednesday – Bodenham Lake – Robins sing in the bright autumn sunshine. It is quiet down the track. I pick a few rose hips. A few Mallard are around the islands. On westernmost island is a Great White Egret and a Grey Heron, Mute Swans and several Canada Geese. The seems to be hardly anything on the scrape these days, which is now quite an extensive area due to the low level of water in the lake. Over 80 Canada Geese, a few Tufted Duck, Mallard, Coot, a Great Crested Grebe and Mute Swans are on the southern side. Also a pair of Herring Gulls on the water which is unusual. Ten Cormorants are in the trees. A pair of medium sized Grebes cross the water. They are mainly silhouetted making identification difficult.
A Wildlife Trust work party turn up to crop the grass in front of the hide so I depart. Into the meadow where there are still several Blackcaps ticking. There are now two Little Egrets with the Great White on the island. However I cannot find the Grebes again. Apples are falling in large numbers in the orchards.
Home – I call in on the chicken supplier on the way home and buy four Warrens. I was expecting Emerald to react violently and attack the incomers but the opposite happens and she is being bullied. There is little that can be done – they will settle down in a few days. The new hens are twenty weeks old so should be in lay quite soon.
The tomatoes are pretty much finished now. Lettuces are coming on well in the greenhouse and another tray has germinated. Brassicas are still growing well. There are still plenty of small apples on the Christmas Pippin, but few on the Herefordshire Russet. The pears on the Conference are so small as to be hardly worth bothering with.
Friday – Home – All the hens went to bed last night in the chicken house, but they do not seem to have learned to use the perch yet. This morning there was a soft shell egg and another which had broken on the floor of the house. Later in the day, two more Warren eggs are laid, one still small but the other a medium size.
Docklow – Mist covers the land. A breeze shakes the trees and water drips from the saturated leaves. Through a pair of gates installed at the Millennium into the churchyard of St Bartholomew’s. The western end of the churchyard is dominated by a large Oak. There are a number of Yew trees in the churchyard, two standing guard over the path leading to the porch. Beside the porch is the moss covered octagonal base of a preaching cross, probably 14th century. A number of chest tombs lay in the churchyard. Erosion, lichen and ivy have made the older ones illegible although they seem to be dated to the late 18th century; another fancier one on lions feet is dated 1846. The church is locked. The building has 12th century origins, extended in the late 13th century and largely rebuilt in 1880 at a cost of £1,100 by Thomas Nicholson. It has an unbuttressed tower with a shingled pyramid roof and a small spire. Docklow derives from the Old English docc and hlāw meaning “mound or hill where docks grow”, and was written in 1291 as Dockelawe. The parish is Docklow and Hampton Wafre, a manor in the Leominster Hundred belonging to Queen Edith with Bruning as Lord of the Manor prior to the Conquest. Post-Conquest, it was part of Roger de Lacy’s lands.
Swallows fly over heading south. A Red Kite passes. Medlicott is a large early 20th century house set in large grounds with apple and pear trees. Two tall roughly hewn stone pillars stand where a gate once guarded a long lane which crossed the River Clun to reach Coston Manor, quite some distance away.
Robin sings from the hedgerow. The variety of trees in this hedgerow suggests it is quite a few hundred years old. A small flock of House Martins feed high overhead.
two levels in a pyramid. The south doorway is typical Norman. has a late 15th century moulded arch-braced collar beam roof. A gallery is mid 19th century replacing one of 1631. The wooden pulpit is from 1897, a richly carved octagonal font is late 19th century and the altar and reredos date from 1909. A Norman font was replaced by the Victorian one and ended up in a church in Bryn which closed in 2007 and the font was returned to its home. On the west wall are the Royal Arms of George III dated 1776. The two manual pipe organ was made by Peter Conacher, and was restored in 1985 by Nicholson. However, it seems a small electric organ is used now. The east window has glass designed by Joseph Bell, dated 1858. Other glass is by by C. E. Kempe and Powell, with one window containing stained glass from the 14th century including coat-of-arms of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. Another window dates from 2012 to remember Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808), member of the Lunar Society and mentor to Humphrey Davy. A number of monuments commemorate the Beddoes family.
in the undergrowth on the main rampart. Fat Wood Pigeons clatter off out of a Hawthorn bush.
underway. It is marvellous to see young handlers hauling huge cows and bulls. The judging is an arcane affair, we have no idea what makes one animal better than another. The sheep are dominated by Ryelands, the breed developed in Leominster. There are some magnificent rams and great rotund ewes. There is a set of pig pens but they do not seem to be being shown in competition. Several have litters of piglets to the delight of younger visitors. I wonder where the chickens are but then Kay points out they will not be here because of the bird flu problem.
hands before being inherited in early 1907 from the Freeman family by John Tucker, who had farmed there since 1873. It was advertised in The Times on 22nd June 1907 as a “valuable freehold farm comprising 287 acres”. The land would be sold with a “very substantial and picturesque farm house…… with lawns and large kitchen garden”. Lawrence Johnston, acting on behalf of his mother, Mrs Gertrude Winthrop, agreed to purchase the estate from John Tucker for £7,200. There was little existing garden, so Lawrence began to put into practice what he had learnt from studying gardening books such as 
The Art & Craft of Garden Making by Thomas H Mawson. The period 1907 – 1914 saw the creation of intimate garden rooms around the house, the Circle; to the south, the Fuchsia garden and the Bathing Pool Garden; and to the west, the Red Borders and the steps up to the two gazebos. The outbreak of the Great War, in which Lawrence fought, suspended progress. In 1919, Gertrude bought the farm at the end of the village road, enabling the garden to be extended to the current boundaries. This period saw the extension of the Long Walk and the creation of the Wilderness, Mrs Winthrop’s Garden, the Pillar Garden and the Rock Bank. By the early 1920s the garden design was largely complete. Lawrence’s interests then moved on to plant hunting, both for Hidcote and the new garden he was developing in the south of France (Serre de la Madone). In 1948 the National Trust acquired Hidcote. The garden is a delightful series of rooms although in many, the effects of the long, dry summer are evident. A Southern Hawker dragonfly alights on a fuschia. Pond Skaters on on the water features along with bright red Common Darters. In the house is a display of textile work by Kaffe Fassett.
crafted in 1925 to commemorate soldiers who died in WWII. A glass case contains a pair of medieval altar frontals, made around 1500, and a cope, made about a century earlier. In the sanctuary is the tomb of Sir Thomas Smythe (died 1593), Lord of the Manor of Campden and first Governor of the East India Company. In the Noel Chantry is the memorial of Sir Baptist Hicks. Hicks gave money for the pulpit and lectern, and also gave £200 to re-roof the nave. The monument is built of marble columns supporting a canopy. On the wall nearby is a memorial to Penelope Noel (died 1633), daughter of Edmund Noel, Viscount Campden. On the chancel arch are two Arts and Crafts copper plaques in memory of several local men who died of dysentery in the Boer War and one who died in a torpedo attack off St Abbs Head in 1914.
Old English Hrolla and landriht, the land-right or property of Hrolla. Flint blades indicate that there was Mesolithic activity in the area.
free-standing.
and excavations in the 1980s revealed human cremations marked by wooden posts and others inserted into the top of the cairn. The King Stone is most likely to have been erected around 1500 BCE as a permanent memorial to the burial ground rather than being an outlier to the much older Stone Circle.
clerestory and west tower 14th century. There are patches of wall paintings uncovered under the thick layer of white-washed plaster. The rood was removed in the reign of Elizabeth I and is now over the south door. By the door is the village fire engine. In 1671, Oxford Justices decreed every church must have a fire engine. This one was probably built by Richard Newsom of Cloth Fair, 
London. Nearby is a wonderful Norman font with carvings depicting Eve holding an apple whilst Adam toils, a two headed serpent, Sagittarius about to shoot Aquarius to prevent him flooding the earth, Aries above the Tree of Life. The east window is dedicated the Revd John Rushton who was the rector from 1841 for over 60 years. In the south aisle is the war memorial and a window dedicated to the fallen by John Henry Dearle of Morris & Co.
century with additions and alterations over the following three centuries. It was restored by G E Street in 1852.
Cotswolds and between 1886 and the early 1890s, he knocked down the old Georgian mansion which stood in the grounds and built a large neo-Tudor house, designed by Earnest George (possibly with Harold Peto). He all but erased any trace of the old layout of the garden and created a wild garden of naturalistic planting derived from his observations in China and Japan. By now an accomplished plants man and authority on bamboos, he created one of the foremost collections of the time – some of which remain to this day. He also 
built the 600 metre artificial watercourse which runs down the western side of the gardens as well as other features such as the hermit’s cave, rockeries, the thatched cottage and a Japanese Rest House. There are also several bronze statues near the Rest House including Buddha, two Japanese deer and a mythical beast called Foo Dog with its paws raised on a cloisonné enamelled globe. The Buddha and deer were imported in 1900 by Mitford – now claiming to be a Buddhist, and are said to represent Buddha practising his first sermon in a deer park.
scattered around with a few Tufted Duck, only a couple of Canada Geese, a half a dozen Coot and another Great Crested Grebe. Seventeen Cormorants are in the trees. A Grey Heron flies off from the southern side. A single Mallard appears from the reed beds. A cock Ring-necked Pheasant stalks the grass in front of the hide. A yelping Canada Goose flies in but receives no reply. A number of the Cormorants fly off southwards. Small skeins of Canada Geese can be heard flying up from the fields to the south before they come into sight. Carrion Crows gather at the top of the island trees, then depart. A few more Tufted Duck fly in. A short time later the main Canada Goose flock over fifty arrives. Another couple of dozen fly in, whiffling furiously to lose height. A drake Mandarin Duck flies across the lake disappearing into the northwestern corner. Wasps land on the outside of the hide to scrape the wood fibre to build their nests. Still more Canada Geese arrive with the flock now well past one hundred birds. As the flock builds up, so does the noise level.
across a field comes the sound of the extractor fans of Tyrrells crisp manufactory. The gates to the garden of the 14th century Yew Cottage has been blacksmithed in parts of horse tackle. Acorns are scattered across the road under a venerable Oak. Hops climb a hedge.
through a hedge.
amount of fruit this season.
then starts to sing, the first time I think I have ever heard the full song. Few minutes later it flies off downstream. Someone has dumped a pretty decent bicycle on the shingle. I would rescue it but in reality there is little chance of me getting down and back up the bank again.
water which is unusual. Ten Cormorants are in the trees. A pair of medium sized Grebes cross the water. They are mainly silhouetted making identification difficult.
egg and another which had broken on the floor of the house. Later in the day, two more Warren eggs are laid, one still small but the other a medium size.
churchyard is dominated by a large Oak. There are a number of Yew trees in the churchyard, two standing guard over the path leading to the porch. Beside the porch is the moss covered octagonal base of a preaching cross, probably 14th century. A number of chest tombs lay in the churchyard. Erosion, lichen and ivy have made the older ones illegible although they seem to be dated to the late 18th century; another fancier one on lions feet is dated 1846. The church is locked. The building has 12th century origins, extended in the late 13th century and largely rebuilt in 1880 at a cost of £1,100 by Thomas Nicholson. It has an unbuttressed tower with a shingled pyramid roof and a small spire. Docklow derives from the Old English docc and hlāw meaning “mound or hill where docks grow”, and was written in 1291 as Dockelawe. The parish is Docklow and Hampton Wafre, a manor in the Leominster Hundred belonging to Queen Edith with Bruning as Lord of the Manor prior to the Conquest. Post-Conquest, it was part of Roger de Lacy’s lands.