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Richard's-Castle (St. Bartholomew)

RICHARD'S-CASTLE (St. Bartholomew), a parish, in the union of Ludlow, partly in the hundred of Wolphy, county of Hereford, and partly in the hundred of Munslow, S. division of Salop, 4 miles (S. S. W.) from Ludlow, on the road to Leominster; containing 656 inhabitants, of whom 343 are in Salop. The parish comprises 4829 acres, of which 2000 are arable, 1500 pasture, 898 woodland, and 183 common or waste: good limestone is quarried. The river Teme separates the lower part from Woolferton; and the Leominster canal passes on the south-east. The higher part of Haye Park runs up to the High Vinealls, which commands most extensive prospects, including the Wrekin to the north, the Black mountains and the Sugar-Loaf on the south-west, the Gloucestershire hills, the Malvern hills, Abberley hills, Clee hills, and the beautiful and rich champagne of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. A charter for a market and a fair was granted by King John, but both have been long disused. The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £15. 1. 3., and in the gift of the Bishop of Worcester: the tithes have been commuted for £650, and there are 109½ acres of glebe. The church, situated in the county of Hereford, is a fine old structure with some beautiful remains of stained glass, and had formerly a spire, which was burned down several years since. A school is supported by the gentry of the parish. Some remains exist of the keep and walls of a castle built by Richard Scrope, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, but they are so embosomed in wood as to be scarcely perceptible: on the declivity of its mount, 2000 royalists under Sir Thomas Dundesford were defeated in the civil war, by an inferior force headed by Col. Birch. A spring in the parish, called Boney well, is remarkable for casting up small fish or frog bones in spring and autumn.

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

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