During the later Middle Ages the castles, which had been built in the county so prolifically during the Norman period, began to fall into decline and many were abandoned for good. The country house now became the dominant feature of an ever-changing society within the Herefordshire landscape.

The major stimulus for the construction of these country houses and estates was the dissolution of the monasteries. Large areas of land that had once belonged to religious orders were passed into different hands, and these new owners often wished to create a country seat for themselves as many of them came from London.

The emphasis was now on the aesthetic use of land rather the practical and economic. This caused many of these new estates to have attached landscaped parks. At Berrington Hall in the north of the county there are earthworks of a deserted medieval village and ridge and furrow field system within the landscaped park. The famous Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown was one of the first landscapers to work in the Welsh Border area and he undertook the ambitious project to landscape the estate of Berrington Hall. This involved mellow grassy slopes broken up with belts of trees with openings to provide magnificent views of the surrounding countryside.

Herefordshire has produced two of the finest landscape designers in Richard Payne Knight, who built the present Downton Castle, and Uvedale Price of Foxley. Both men were members of the influential Picturesque school of landscape design, which sought to enhance the landscape in a natural manner. Often villages were remodelled (or even relocated) to fit around the new county estates, eg Eastnor and Stoke Edith.

Downton Castle

The open field system of agriculture was highly evident throughout England from the Norman Conquest to the end of the 18^th century. However in the Borderland and Herefordshire it had a relatively short life.

Earthworks of ridge and furrow and documentary evidence shows that this system was prevalent in the Marches by about 1300, but it formed only part of the agricultural system alongside pastoral farming.

Records for fruit production in Herefordshire date from the 14th century, and Beale in his book ‘Herefordshire Orchard: A Pattern for All England’ describes the county as the ‘Orchard of England’. Indeed by the late 18th century 15 varieties of cider apple and 6 of pear were being grown in the county. Later more than 27,000 acres of the county would be taken up by fruit production. Today the county is the 4th largest fruit producer in England and Bulmers produces 65% of the cider in the UK each year.

Unfortunately, Herefordshire failed to establish itself as a major industrial centre because of its poor communication and transport systems. The River Wye proved to be unreliable for navigation and transportation in and out of Hereford and the county. Most transportation of goods was done by packhorse or cart along the bumpy and often boggy tracks of the county.

Due to the poor transportation network Hereford failed to make a name for itself on the national market, and as other county towns were progressing and expanding Hereford remained a mainly local market town. As a county town Hereford lacked any major industry of its own. In 1700 the main manufacturing industry of the town was glove–making, but even this was in decline by the end of the 18^th century.

With the completion of the Leominster & Stourport and the Hereford & Gloucestershire canals and the coming of the railway in the first half of the 19^th century the fortunes of the city improved slightly. In 1757 the population of the city was 5,595 (3,878 within the city walls and 1,714 outside) but less than 10 years later it was over double this amount (the 1851 census puts the population of Hereford at 12,000). The introduction of gas and local public transport towards the end of the 19^th century caused Hereford to expand rapidly outside of its medieval walls and it began to swallow up the smaller settlements that had grown up around it.

The first railways had arrived in England in the 1830s. However, they didn’t reach Herefordshire until January 1853, making Hereford the last of the cathedral cities in the country to gain a railway system.

Elsewhere in the county the fortunes of other market towns were following a similar line as that of the county town. Leominster, once famous for its wool (once compared in fineness to the silk of a silkworm by the poet Michael Drayton), was now finding that this industry had tailed off. Leominster and its high quality wool had had the potential to become one of the major woollen centres in the country but unfortunately the River Lugg and the Pinsley Brook which run through the area did not flow fast enough to drive the large waterwheels needed in a textile mill. Like Hereford, Leominster had a glove industry but this was not highly prosperous. In the 1830 Pigot’s Directory Leominster is described as being ‘more in a state of decay than improvement’.

Ross-on-Wye, a market town in the south of the county, also failed to make an impact on national industry. The Market Hall of the town was built in 1660-1674 and continued to be the focus of the town’s trade well into the 19^th century. As well as the Market Hall in the 19^th century Ross could also boast 17 inns and shops, all purveying a range of crafts from baskets and ropes to weaving and braziers. Later, the manufacture focused on agricultural implements but this still remained on a local level.

The road system of the county of Herefordshire like many other places in England had been largely developed by the Romans during their excursions in Britain in the first half the first century AD.

	This road system had survived well after the Romans left and by the Middle Ages it had been expanded into quite an extensive communication system, although it was still best travelled by horse or on foot. Medieval man had not been the greatest of road builders, nor had the Elizabethan or the Stuart and the roads remained under developed and poorly maintained.
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In 1645 during the Civil War the Earl of Leven (who was campaigning in Herefordshire) complained to Parliament about the state of the roads in Herefordshire. His greatest complaint was that their poor condition meant that his troops could only manage to march 8 miles in one day.

Right up to the middle of the 18^th century the majority of goods transported in and out of the county were carried by packhorse. However, the roads had such poor, muddy surfaces that between the autumn and the middle of April families wanting to visit friends in neighbouring villages were banned from using them. In the spring the roads were levelled by teams of men with ploughs, but this still left a surface unsuitable for stagecoaches.

In 1730 an Act of Parliament was passed allowing groups of local men to take over the maintenance and improvement of sections of road in the county. In return for the work they did on the road system these men were entitled to install tollgates and turnpikes and to charge people for passage along their roads. These groups of men were called Turnpike Trusts.

The improvements to the roads as a direct result of these tolls made it possible for packhorses to be replaced by wagons and carriages. This in turn meant that larger and heavier packages could be transported as a carriage could carry 5 times as much as a packhorse. The improved roads also resulted in speedier and more comfortable personal travel.

Hereford had had a twice weekly London stagecoach since 1774, known as ‘Pruen’s Flying Machine. The journey took 36 hours and cost the grand sum of £1, 5s. However, by 1815 the journey could be done in a day - albeit a very long one.

This improved ability to travel in and out of the county resulted in a number of new hotels and coaching houses being built and the Hereford Guide of 1808 lists 6 hotels within the centre of Hereford itself.

Goods could now travel long distances and people began to cash in on this fact. One such company was Morris’s Wagons, which set out every Sunday evening at 10pm from the Warehouse in Broad Street, stopping at Ross, Gloucester, The Black Bear in Piccadilly and terminating at the Saracen’s Head in Friday Street, on the following Friday. A rival service was offered by Messrs Moles and Dodd and they also made many local trips that could be done in a day.

Communication was also enhanced. There was now a postal system that left the city every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning from the City Arms Hotel in Broad Street. From here the post travelled through Worcester and arrived at the Bull and Mouth in London the following morning. A rival service left the Green Dragon on the same mornings travelling through Ross and Gloucester.

By 1800 roads had improved but transportation by wagon was still extremely expensive. It was acknowledged that the river was one way to improve transportation as boats and barges could hold heavier and larger goods, just as the wagons had been able to carry more than the packhorses.

The River Wye running into the county from the west and heading out of the county in the south would have made an ideal form of transport, but due to its strong currents and windy path Herefordians were unable to make the most of this venture. At  certain times of the year the River Wye could be used to import coal, building materials and slate into the county and export Herefordshire hops, cider, oak, wool and wheat.

In 1662 an Act of Parliament had been granted to Sir William Sandys to allow him to make the Rivers Wye and Lugg and the streams of the county more navigable. He attempted to construct locks and channels, weirs and turnpikes but unfortunately the volume and speed of the water in the Wye meant that this plan was not as successful as hoped.

In 1763 Isaac Taylor put forward a plan to install a system of locks along the River Wye. It was estimated that the project would have cost £20,000, but unfortunately, it was never to happen.

In 1805 a Mr. Jessop submitted a proposal on improvements that could be made to the navigation of the River Wye. This resulted in the laying of a ten-foot wide toll path along the River Wye to enable barges to be towed by men and horses. Unfortunately this system came too late for a town heading into the Victorian era of more efficient transport.

At the beginning of the 1800’s mention was made of installing a horse-powered tramway in the county. A route was considered which would have run from the River Wye at Lydbrook to a wharf near the Wye Bridge in Hereford, a total of 24 miles. The aim being to link Hereford to the Newport & Brecon Canal. However, the financial backing for such a venture could not be found and eventually the canal was built in three parts - each owned by a separate company - Hereford being the last section to be built. It was not until 1829 that a tram road appeared in Hereford, the route was installed by the Grosmont Railway Company and the line linked the terminus of the Llanvihangel Railway and Hereford. In 1845 the route was sold to the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway and the railway by-passed the tram terminus at Wye Bridge in favour of the new railway station at Barrs Court.

Another tramway in the county was the Brecon, Hay & Eardisley tramway, which was built after receiving an Act of Parliament in 1811. The idea being to construct a tramroad from the canal at Brecon to Hay and onto Eardisley with a view to continuing it to Leominster, though this latter section was not completed. Its purpose was to carry coal, iron, lime, corn and other commodities. In 1859 the tramroad was purchased by the Hereford, Hay and Brecon railway company. The tramroad was completed in 1818 from the canal at Brecon to Eardisley. It was then continued through to Kington, where it opened in 1820 and on out to Burlingjobb in Radnorshire, a distance of 34 miles. Parts of the tramway were later absorbed into the Kington & Eardisley Railway in 1861.

Canals had been in existence in England since the second half of the 1700’s. The main product that was transported by canal was coal. The coal that supplied Hereford came mostly from the Forest of Dean to the south of the county and was usually carried by packhorse or barge. In 1791 an Act was passed allowing a canal to be cut between Hereford and the River Severn at Gloucester. This project was to cost around £80,000. By the beginning of the 19^th century the canal had reached Ledbury but almost 50 years were to pass before the canal reached Hereford.

The canal was completed too late to be of great commercial worth to the city and soon industry in the area was looking at the railways for more cost effective and speedy transportation of goods. In 1862 the canal was leased to the Great Western and West Midland Railways and in 1881 the canal ceased to operate and part of the route was turned into a railway with a lease still being paid by the railway companies.

There was also a proposal to build a canal that would link Leominster to Stourport in Worcestershire, which would allow goods and coal from the industrial Midlands to imported and agricultural produce from Herefordshire to be exported. The original plan was that the canal would run from Kington on the west border of the county through to Leominster and then north to Woofferton before heading east to Stourport. The canal proposal was set in motion in 1790 but by 1845 only the section between Leominster and the Mamble Collieries was completed. In 1845 the Canal Company decided to cut their losses and sell to one of the railway companies which were quickly advancing on the county. In 1845 the canal was sold to the Woofferton & Tenbury Railway Company who later reused some of the canal as track bed.

The canals in Hereford had been started too late to be of any great commercial value and the more efficient railway system soon arrived in the county forcing them into redundancy.

In 1825 George Stephenson (builder of the famous ‘Rocket’ Steam Engine) was chief engineer on the laying down of a railway line between Stockton and Darlington. This was the beginning of the creation of a public railway system. Herefordshire was once again behind the times with the first freight railway reaching the city in 1852, the last cathedral city to gain a railway system. The first passenger train arrived in Hereford from Shrewsbury in October 1853, but the occasion was distinctly under celebrated, some said it was because of it being  market day and traders being loathed to come and celebrate for fear of loss of business.

The first train of the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway rolled into the city on the 6th of December 1853. The train on the Shrewsbury to London line arrived the same day and a local holiday was declared, and the day was known as 'The Great Railway Fete'. Business was suspended and the town decorated in banners and flags. Over 60,000 people flooded in to the city to join in the celebrations (the 1851 census put the population of Hereford at only 12,000). In the evening there was a celebration banquet at the Shire Hall

In 1833 a plan had been laid out to create a line that ran from the south-west to the north-west through Hereford. Isambard Kingdom Brunel (famous for designing the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol) was at this time chief engineer of the company building the Great Western Railway. Brunel was in favour of a broader railway line that would allow faster trains but the company opted for Stephenson's narrower gauge. In 1850 Brunel received support for his broad gauge system but it wasn’t until the beginning of the 1860’s that a broad gauge route from Gloucester through Hereford and Ross came into existence.

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In 1861 The Worcester & Hereford Railway arrived in the city and then at the end of the 1860’s and early 1870’s the Hereford, Hay & Brecon Railway operated from the city’s third station at Moorfields. Later this route provided connections to the rest of South Wales.

In the space of just over 20 years Hereford had gone from being a ‘backwater’ to having three railway stations with a rail network stretching out in 5 directions. As expected much of the transport in and out of the county now switched from stage coaches and canals to railways. Many wagon services ceased to operate almost overnight but some remained that served areas not yet connected by the railway.

Hereford now had the opportunity to participate in the growing national economy. Cattle and agricultural produce could now be shifted in and out of the county speedily by train. A more efficient postal system also resulted from this new form of communication.

The current population of Herefordshire is about 170,000 people. The City of Hereford is about 65,000 people, with none of the other market towns being larger than 10,000.

The population graphs are fairly typical of a rural county with a rise in population until the 1870s and then decline. These figures don’t show the influx of people during hop and apple picking time when the resident population increased by almost one third. They also hide the massive rise in population and emigration to other parts of the country or world that occurred in the 19th century. In 1851 migration from the county was as much as 19,000 p.a. of which 6,000 went to London and 2,000 to Lancashire (Dodd, J P 1980 Transactions of the Woolhope p203). Large families, low wages, poverty and discontent lie behind these statistics, but this fascinating and important subject that has been little studied in Herefordshire (but see Taylor, E 1997, Kings Caple in Archenfield).

Herefordshire Population Graph purple = Herefordshire, yellow = Hereford City

The town of Hereford on the other hand is not so typical. It grew steadily until the late 20th century with no quick expansion in the 19th century or following the coming of the railway (1853). The railways came because of the population, not the other way round. In the late 20th century there has been a very rapid and large rise, and this is ongoing.

In the early part of the 18^th century Hereford was visited by Daniel Defoe who was researching his book ‘A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain’. The Hereford that greeted Defoe was ‘large and populus’ but also ‘truly an old, mean built, and very dirty city’. The reason for the apparent run down state of the city was the economic depression that Hereford found itself in after the Civil Wars and the decline in trade caused by Henry VIII when Herefordians rebelled against his dissolution of the monasteries.

Up until the beginning of the 19th century the predominant building materials used in Herefordshire were local sandstone and timber. Oak was found in abundant supply in the county at this time, which is why Herefordshire is now a county famed for its timber-framed buildings. Heavy use of oak in industry and house building soon meant that it was become less and less plentiful and soon local sandstone became the cheaper and more accessible building material.

Bricks had been used in the county since the 15^th century for features such as chimneys. There was clay readily available in the area for the making of bricks but there was no suitable fuel for firing, until coal could be brought in by barge from outside the county in the second half of the 17^th century, bricks were only produced in small number. These early bricks were shallow in depth and can still be seen in buildings in Hereford today.

In 1774 Hereford’s Lamp Act was passed. This meant that there was much alteration made to the face of the city. The gates and parts of the wall encircling the city were demolished and run down houses were cleared and trimmed back. However only the visible ‘ruins’ were dealt with. Very little was done to improve the living conditions in the crowded working class housing that had grown up behind the town’s façade.

At the start of the 19^th century the agricultural industry was in a depression and people began to move out of the countryside and into the city, crowding into the already teeming back street‘slums’. As a result of this influx of people many of the more well to do families began to move away from the city and into the surrounding suburbs of Aylestone Hill and beyond.

The numbers of people seeking help due to impoverished circumstances was steadily rising in England and Herefordshire in particular had a problem with vagrants, beggars and poorly paid agricultural labourers. In 1834 the Government's answer to this problem was to create Union Workhouses within various areas of the county. These workhouses were institutions where members of the community who were unable to provide for themselves could live and be supplied with meals (albeit basic and unappetising) and clothing. Life in the workhouse was very hard and people were expected to help pay for their upkeep by performing hard labour such as stone breaking. The workhouse was not designed to be an easy solution to poverty but was designed as a deterrent to living the life of a pauper. It was hoped that the harsh conditions would encourage people to work harder and save for their future.

Weobley Union Workhouse - built 1837

By the mid 19^th century the population within the city had increased greatly and was accompanied by a steady boom in market trade, which also brought about improved water supplies and sanitary living arrangements. Soon the demand for better and more ornate housing brought about the creation of a series of brick and tile works in around the city.

Life in the slum areas of Hereford such as Bewell Street (behind All Saints Church) did not improve so dramatically. In 1875 Benjamin Disraeli, the then Prime Minister passed The Public Health Act which was to govern future building practices with a view to improving living conditions and sanitation.

In 1885 a Housing of the Working Classes Act was passed to provide more housing that was of a suitable standard. This Act recognised that good quality housing was not within the reach of most working class people so the burden was put onto the local authority to deal with the present substandard housing and to purchase land for the construction of new housing. The first purpose built Council owned estates opened up in Hereford at the beginning of the 20^th century.

MG

Useful reference material: The Shaping of Modern Hereford - Graham Roberts