VCH Herefordshire Publications

The volume was published in 1908, edited by William Page. It contains the following entries:

• Natural History
• Early Man
• Romano-British Herefordshire
• Ancient Earthworks
• Introduction to the Herefordshire Domesday
• Translation of the Herefordshire Domesday
• Political History
• Agriculture

The full text is available via the Internet Archive.

Edited by William Page this volume was published in 1908.

The volume contains the following entries:

• Political History
• Schools
• Ancient Earthworks
• Agriculture

The volume also includes accounts of the parishes in the following hundreds:

• Dacorum Hundred
• Cashio Hundred

These parishes are on British History Online.

Edited by William Page this volume was published is 1912.

The volume covers the northern and eastern parts of the county, including accounts of Baldock, Bishop's Stortford, Hitchin and Letchworth, as well as the county town of Hertford. This includes the following hundreds:

• Hitchin Hundred
• Broadwater Hundred
• Odsey Hundred
• Broughing Hundred
• Hertford Hundred

This volume is on British History Online.

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1914.

It includes an account of the parishes in Edwinstree Hundred. The  volume also includes the following entries:

• Celtic and Romano-British Hertfordshire
• Social and Economic History
• Industries
• Forestry
• Ecclesiastical History
• Religious Houses

The descriptions of the medieval religious houses are on British History Online.

The full text of the volume is available via the Internet Archive.

A separate index to volumes I-IV was published in 1923.

The full text is available via the Internet Archive.

Written by Sylvia Pinches, the book was published in 2010.

Ledbury is a small town in the lush Herefordshire countryside. How did it come to be here and who and what shaped its development? This volume explores a quiet corner of England from the earliest times until the middle of the 16th century. Hunters, herdsmen and the first farmers left but faint traces to mark their passing. Enigmatic structures like Wall Hills and British Camp stand as monuments to a time before writing. The woods and fields, streets and lanes bear the imprint of countless generations, to be deciphered by archaeologists. By the time it emerges in the written record, the site of Ledbury itself had become the main focus of the area, and in due course it developed into a small town with some remarkable buildings, among them a well-endowed hospital and a lavish church. Events, including the Black Death, conspired to ensure that its full potential was never realised, but it remains marked by its medieval past: to this day an exceptional – and most attractive – place. Using the evidence of the landscape itself, physical remains, artefacts and buildings, and tantalising glimpses from old documents it has been possible to chart the history of this little market town and the surrounding countryside for nearly five hundred years. The story ends in 1558, a Catholic queen on the throne, but religious changes already afoot in the nation at large and in Ledbury. There were new families, new ideas and the glimmerings of a new wealth which would flourish at the end of the century.

Written by Sylvia Pinches, the book was published in 2009.

Ledbury lies in a quiet corner of Herefordshire, just about equidistant from the cities of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester. Remote, but not isolated, the town is surrounded by ancient wooded hills, while the River Leadon, from which the town is thought to take its name, meanders slowly through the meadows to the west. Visitors and inhabitants alike can empathise with Ledbury-born Poet Laureate John Masefield, who 'felt the beauty of the place and the mystery of its past … through century after century'. Ledbury: a Market Town and its Tudor Heritage tells the story of this ancient town from 1558, when Elizabeth I confiscated the bishop's manor and estate, through a period of great prosperity in the 16th century to the present day. During the Tudor period the town's cloth trade flourished and the market which served the rural parishes surrounding the town thrived. The resulting physical transformation, including the wide market place and streets lined with timber-framed buildings, still attracts visitors today. The story extends from the reign of the first Elizabeth to the present day. It traces the ups and downs of a market town which has benefited from its location on the route between Hereford and Worcester but remains a small town. Ledbury has enjoyed its share of changes in trade, transport, social provision, architecture, industry and leisure, developments which have individually and collectively helped to shape the town today. But what strikes the visitor is its Tudor heritage, which continues to reflect the unexpected and untold riches generated, albeit for such a short time, in the later Tudor and early Jacobean decades.

Bosbury, edited by Janet Cooper, was the second VCH 'Short' for Herefordshire, published in 2017. 

It includes a detailed history of the large rural parish north of Ledbury. More information can be found on University of London Press.

Colwall, by James Bowen and Alex Craven, with Jonathan Comber and David Whitehead, was published in 2020. It is the third VCH 'Short' for the county and describes the rural parish on the edge of the Malvern Hills bordered by Worcestershire. More information can be found University of London Press.

The Victoria History of Herefordshire: Cradley

Anastasia Stylianou (Author), Fergus Eskola-Oakes (Author)

University of London Press

Scenic and rural, the parish of Cradley stretches down westwards from the Malvern Hills, bordered by Worcestershire to the north and east. It is one of the largest parishes in Herefordshire, and from the medieval period to the nineteenth century was populous and prosperous. Cradley manor was a valuable holding of the medieval bishops of Hereford. The ecclesiastical benefice, Anglo-Saxon in origin, was equally lucrative, frequently passing nepotistically to well-connected young priests; however, such connections did not prevent one thirteenth-century rector being outlawed for murder! The expanding number of manors in the parish, from the thirteenth century onwards, resulted in a fragmented model of land ownership and the development of a powerful body of wealthy yeomanry, shaping the distinctive character of the parish and its governance in the early modern period.

Drawing extensively on local archival sources, this volume analyses, among other topics, the centrality of agriculture to the parish’s story, charting Cradley’s socio-economic growth from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, before its subsequent decline. As such, this book constitutes an important contribution to English local history, exploring the prosperity that could be enjoyed by parishes in fertile Eastern Herefordshire, and the impact of changes in the national economy upon rural, agrarian communities.

Full details and purchase via University of London Press: The Victoria History of Herefordshire: Cradley

Eastnor, edited by Janet Cooper, former county editor for VCH Essex and earlier in her career, an assistant editor for VCH Oxfordshire, was the second VCH 'Short', published in 2013. 

It includes a detailed history of the parish and Eastnor castle. More information can be found University of London Press.