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Bolstone
Herefordshire |
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Bolstone
appears to contain the personal name Bola or Bula
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Bola's stone. |
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This small parish on the west bank of the Wye in south
Herefordshire belonged to the Knights Hospitallers, and in
1505 Thomas Llewellyn was recorded as tenant of ‘a capital
messuage or mansion’ with lands and pastures in Bolstone.
After the Dissolution the manor was acquired by John Scudamore
of Holme Lacy. In this quiet and remote place, a murder was
committed in 1390 by Henry Peytevyn who stabbed David Baker in
the chest and killed him. Henry pleaded that it was
self-defence as David had struck him on the head with a staff.
After being detained in Hereford Castle gaol, Henry was
granted a pardon.
In the early 19th century Bolstone consisted of ‘3
noted Farm Houses and ten Cottages, having about 70
Inhabitants: the Cottages contain on an average only four
persons’, and ‘The soil is in general gravelly and sandy, and
Barley is the Grain best adapted. Tho good crops of Wheat and
Peas are sometimes to be had: but the former precarious.’
Displayed on one of the houses was the following sign:
‘I, Andrew Churchman, here do
dwell;
Be it known to all, I am Constable,
Of this parish, and Clerk I am,
Of Bolstone, and of Ballingham;
A Craftsman, ready to attend,
The wants and orders, of a Friend:
As, Weaver, Gardener, and Tree Grafter;
Beehives in plenty, when sought after:
Can cure all desease, in Swine,
If that I am, call’d in, in time.’
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Blocked doorway at
St John's church, Bolstone
Image courtesy of
Hereford City Library |
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Bolstone Court and Church
Bolstone Court Farm is said to date from the 17th
century, and probably replaced an earlier building. It formed
part of the Holme Lacy estate and from the mid 18th
century until the 1820s James Smith was the tenant followed by
Richard Preece. The 12th century church dedicated
to St John stands in the farmyard. It belonged to the Knights
Hospitallers and after the Dissolution the tithes passed to
the Scudamores. In 1820 Duncumb wrote ‘The Chapel is a small
and inferior Building and contains no Inscription of
Consequence. The letters SB of date 1641, remain on a common
flat Stone near the Rails of the Altar’. The church was
restored in 1876-77 at a cost of £700. |
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The
deconsecrated church at Bolstone in 2005. |
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In the early
16th century the manor of Bolstone had
belonged to the
Knights
Hospitallers. We have
translated a rental of 1505. At the
dissolution the estate was purchased from the crown by John
Scudamore.
On the right is part of the 1505
rental. Click on this image for transcription and translation
of the rental. |
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Until 1884 a
small part of Bolstone parish lay on the left bank of the Wye.
It was then transferred to Fownhope. This seems to have been a
piece of land given by Roger de Chandos to
Craswall Priory
when the monks held a manor in the Bolstone-Holme Lacy area.
Within the current Bolstone parish, on the bank of the Wye
there was a mill called Abbot Tarretts Mill in 1639. In 1191
this was Abethtarada and in 1230 Abbertaret. The 1505 rental
calls it Aburtaretts Mill. These must be a
corruption of Aber Taratyr - 'the mouth of the River Taratyr'
indicating that this small stream was once the boundary
between English Herefordshire and Welsh Archenfield. |
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Bolstone is one of the more wooded parishes in the area,
although a large area of what had been
Bolstoune Wood
(left)
was converted to farmland in the mid 19th century.
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Trilloes Court Wood and
Moat
In the southern part of the centre of the parish,
there is an old
moated site in another wood - Trilloes Court Wood
(right). A moated
house would not been built in woodland and Trilloes Court Wood
must therefore have been planted after the abandonment of the
site. |
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This wood and moated site was also part of the Scudamore
empire, and the 38 acre wood was cut in 1814 and 1815, and in
1840 the wood was without a tenant. In the 20th
century Trilloes Court Wood was managed by the Forestry before
being sold in the 1990s to a private owner who lives and works
in the wood. The moated site is shown on the 1888 OS sheet and
was recorded by the NMR in the late 1920s. In 1934 Richardson
recorded the spring in the upper part of Trilloes Court Wood
which was known ‘to be good for the eyes’. The Woolhope Club
visited the site in 1952 and found it ‘Situated on a slope
partly filled with water-washed silt. On a slope above there
was a charcoal deposit. Probing it in other places indicated a
possible stone wall’. The spring higher up which formed the
cause of silting is traditionally know to have curative
properties which may have led to the name Trilloes meaning
‘holy’. The site is recorded on the SMR as a ‘Homestead moat’. |
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Gannah Farm
The name is probably derived from ‘gamen’ meaning game, and it
has been suggested that the site served as a hunting lodge in
the 16th century, as it adjoined a wild red deer
park, a large fishpond and an eyrie for hawks. The first known
reference to the place was in 1225, and in 1343 it was
recorded as ‘A messuage, 60 acres of land and 10 acres of
wood, held by the Dean and Chapter of Hereford.’ In the 15th
century it was already in Scudamore ownership and in1780
Gannah with its 130 acres was tenanted to James Rogers who
farmed the ‘good land fit for dairying and tillage’ adjoining
Holme Lacy deer park. At that date the farm house had ‘
greatly gone to Wreck’ and the estate advised that it ‘should
be let to an occupier who would reside’ there. By 1820 James
Stevens was the tenant followed by William Powell in 1840.
When offered for sale in 1919 Gannah Farm was a ‘Stone and
Slated Farmhouse Occupying a pleasant position and containing
Two Sitting Rooms, Kitchen, Dairy, Pantry and Cellars... Above
are Five Bed Rooms. There is a good Walled Garden’. The
Buildings comprise Spacious Barn with two bays, Ten-Stall
Beast House, Chaff House, Cart Horse Stable for 4 horses, Pigs
Cots, Two-Stall Nag Stable and Coach House’. |
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Trill Mill
The name dates from at least 1505 when Thomas Cocks held ‘a
parcel of customary land called Trill Mill’. It is shown as a
mill site on Taylor’s map of 1754, and Trill Mill is the name
of a field tenanted to John Dykes in 1840. When the site was
surveyed in the 1980s by Coates and Tucker ‘no remains of mill
detected, but probable leat can be followed’. There was
another water mill with a fishery in 1505 tenanted to Richard
Minors. In 1840 the adjoining cottage was occupied by the
Andrews family. |
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Bolstone Field Project
Bolstone GENUKI pages
Archaeological records from
Bolstone are held on
Historic Herefordshire On Line |
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