Richards Castle, Herefordshire

Historical Description

Richards Castle, a village and a parish in Herefordshire and Salop. The village stands adjacent to the boundary with Salop, 2 miles WNW of Woofferton station on the Shrewsbury and Hereford (L. & N.W and G.W.) Joint railway, and 3½ SSW of Ludlow. It was once a market-town, and has a post office under Ludlow; money order and telegraph office, Orleton. The parish includes the townships of Woofferton, Overton, Moor, and Batchcott. Acreage, 4909 (including 2500 in Herefordshire); population, 735 (including 249 in Herefordshire). There is a parish council of seven members for the Salop portion of the parish, and a parish meeting for the portion in Herefordshire. Moor Park, Overton, and Overton House are the chief residences. There are timber yards and a large sawmill at Woofferton. A castle was built here before the Norman Conquest by Richard Fitz-Scrob, and has left some traces. The Royalists were routed in the vicinity in 1645 by Colonel Birch. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Hereford; net value, £668 with, residence. Patron, the Bishop of Worcester. The church of St Bartholomew is a fine old Norman edifice with a detached tower. A new church was erected in 1891 at Batchcott.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Richards Castle from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Richard's-Castle (St. Bartholomew))

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Herefordshire is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Richards Castle are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Herefordshire newspapers online:

• Hereford Journal
• Hereford Times