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Froome, Bishop's (St. Mary, or St. Bartholomew)

FROOME, BISHOP'S (St. Mary, or St. Bartholomew), a parish, in the union of Bromyard, hundred of Radlow, county of Hereford; containing, with the township of Eggleton, 1079 inhabitants, of whom 900 are in the township of Bishop's-Froome, 4¾ miles (S. by E.) from Bromyard. This parish, which also includes the districts or divisions of Halmonds-Froome, Leadon, Stanford Regis, and Walton, comprises by measurement 4014 acres of land, of great variety in its quality; the valleys are extremely fertile, and the general features of the surface are very picturesque, from its timber, hills, and the small streams of water that meander in different parts. On the river Froome are numerous corn-mills, and its trout are excellent. Wall-stone and paving-stone are found, as also corn-stone and limestone-gravel, the last being burnt for lime. The roads from Ledbury to Bromyard, and Hereford to Worcester, pass through. The Bishop of Hereford holds a court baron, as lord of the manor of Bishop's-Froome township. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £8. 5. 10., and endowed in the last century with the larger portion of the great tithes by R. C. Hopton, then patron: some lands are tithe-free as having belonged to Llanthony Abbey, and others as the property of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The rent-charge in lieu of tithes is £569, including the extraordinary charge on hops; and there are 130 acres of glebe-land, with a vicarage-house, a good and substantial dwelling: patron, the Rev. John Hopton. The church is an ancient Norman structure possessing considerable remains of beauty, with a tower of early English architecture; it contains an admirable effigy of a cross-legged knight, and is the burial-place of Richard Hopton, chief justice of North Wales in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., and of Susanna, his wife, an account of whom is published in the Lives of Eminent Women of the 17th Century. There are two schoolrooms, and a house for the master, with an endowment of £15 per annum. A curious formation in the sandstone in the bed of one of the streams here, led to a religious legend of bygone days; and a religious house of some description stood in a part of Stanford Regis.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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