The old market place in Bromyard, north-east Herefordshire (courtesy of Hereford City Library)

Bromyard was already a manor of the bishops of Hereford in 840 when Bishop Cuthwulf, with the consent of Beorhtwulf, King of Mercia, granted certain lands next to the river Frome for a period of three lives.  At the expiry of these, the land was to be returned to the minster called Bromyard - 'monasterio qui dicitur Bromgeard'.  By this time then, there was already a church at Bromyard.  The place name Bromgeard simply means ‘Broom Enclosure’. 

As Bromyard was an episcopal manor, the manor house, as an occasional residence of a bishop, was technically a palace.

In Domesday, Bromgerde, in Plegeliet Hundred, was a large manor with 42 villeins, 9 borderers and 6 slaves with 39 plough-teams in demesne.  Three of the bishop’s men-at-arms held 9 hides with 11½ ploughs and an additional unspecified number of men who had 20 plough-teams between them.  There were also 2 priests and a chaplain, together with a reeve and a radman.

The two priests and a chaplain at Bromyard at Domesday would probably have served the whole hundred - originally the parochia of the church.  Strangely, the only other priests recorded in the hundred are two at Avenbury, the nearest village to Bromyard.  Avenbury however was an anomaly.  It was a possession of the Church of Worcester from an early date – at least the time of Bishop Waerfrith of Worcester (973-915) - and the special status of the church with its two priests probably reflects a small monastic community.  Elsewhere in the county the minsters at Leominster and Ledbury also originally appear to have served large parochiae.

The Market Place in 2004.  It must have been larger in the 13th century when the bishop was renting out 47 market stalls at threepence or fourpence per annum.

Gradually other churches were built and priests appointed to them, creating the more familiar parish system which survives today.  The three clerics at Bromyard seem to have been the forerunners of the portioners.  The church at Bromyard was a portionary minster served by three priests who received a portion of the tithes of the parish.  In the later Middle Ages these portioners, who were appointed sometimes by the bishop and sometimes by the king, were church or state officials who held office elsewhere but each had a house and a barn at Bromyard.  This was a means of providing incomes for favoured clerics. Their only apparent serious duty was the appointment of the Vicar of Bromyard, who was responsible for the cure of souls in what had become a medium-sized parish in the modern fashion.

The First portion was Astley or Lower Court.  This property was situated directly north of the church and was granted to John Tyssebury in 1407 when he held it together with a prebend in Salisbury Cathedral.

The Second portion was Over or Upper Court, or Mill Hill Court.  In 1379 John Botuler was nominated for this portion, then vacant, and in 1387 Richard Wynchecombe was ratified as parson of Slymbrigg and portioner of Overhall in the church of Bromyard.  In 1389 John Godmeister had this portion.  The third portion, lying north of the church between the First and Second portioners houses, was Middle Court.

The late 11th century ecclesiastical enclosure.  A village presumably clustered around this core.
The bishop’s palace would have been separated from the churchyard which would have been larger than the present one.
The probable positions of the portioners' houses, based on the later known positions, are marked 1, 2 and 3.
Each house, the bishop’s and the three portioners, would have had its own range of out-buildings – barns, stables etc.

The situation at Bromyard was paralleled at Ledbury, where there were two portioners - one at Upper Hall, or Over Court, and the other at Lower Hall, or Nether Court.  Here too was an ecclesiastical core, which included, besides the portioners’ houses, the bishop’s palace and the parish church.  Ledbury is perhaps an even clearer example of an early minster church than Bromyard, and in Domesday sat in a large compact holding of the church which may have been the gift Mildfrith in the late 7^th century.

Richard de Capella, who was Bishop of Hereford between 1121 and 1127, probably founded the boroughs at his manors of Bromyard and Ledbury.  De Capella would have been an experienced administrator and well aware of the possible benefits of borough creation, having been Keeper of the Royal Seal between 1107 and 1121.  Near this time boroughs were also founded at Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, Bishops Castle in Shropshire and Prestbury, near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.  These boroughs may have been founded by the bishop in competition with the Prior of Leominster, where the borough may well date from the same period.

Bromyard Church in the 19th century (courtesy of Hereford City Library)

The Bishops of Hereford’s proprietorial relationship to Bromyard is emphasised in 1324 when it is referred to as Bishop’s Bromyard.  In that year Adam Orleton, the then bishop, together with others, assaulted the Prior of St Guthlac's, Hereford, who was attempting to take away property which had been confiscated from the bishop during a dispute with Edward II.

At Bromyard the new borough seems to have been laid out to the south of the area occupied by the church and the palace.  It consisted of a new street connecting the roads leading from the south-west and the south-east.  This street was known as Nova Vico - New Street - in the later 13th century and New Streete in the 16th century.  This street is now High Street and Broad Street and would have had burgage plots to the north and south.

Bromyard in the mid-12th century.  The new borough was laid out to the south of the palace and church, probably by Richard de Capella, Bishop of Hereford 1121-1127.
The position of the blocks of burgage plots is conjectural.  However the original borough would almost certainly have had a simpler plan than it seems to have had in the later 13th century – see below.
The curved street running west from the market seems to have been new – Novo Vico.  The street running north to south on the east side of the market was Veteri Vico – the old street.

A large market place was established on the north side of the eastern end of this street.  To the west of this, the north-south street which is now composed of Church Street and Sherford Street was probably also burgaged - the later 13th name Veteri Vico - Old Street - would seem to suggest so.  It would seem likely that burgages were also laid out at the north-eastern and of Cruxwell Street as this was the road to Hereford from the palace and the church, and therefore a prime site for development. 

Nova Vico in 2004.  The view from High Street looking towards Broad Street. The Falcon Hotel stands on the corner of High Street/Broad Street (Nova Vico) and Pump Street. Pump Street may have been Vico de Avonebury in the 13th century.

Towards the end of the 13^th century a survey of the estates of the Bishop of Hereford was carried out.  The data - manors, rents and so forth were entered into a volume, which is known as the Red Book from the colour of its leather binding.  The Red Book lists the tenants of Bromyard Foreign and the burgesses of the borough of Bromyard.  The survey was carried out street by street, with each street name being followed by the names of the burgage holders and their holdings – i.e. whether a single burgage, a part burgage, or a holding larger than a single burgage.

In Bromyard, the Red Book lists 230 named tenants who held whole, parts or multiples of burgages.  The streets which were burgaged included Veteri Vico (42¼ burgages), Novo Vico (30¼), Vico de Meydeneswelle (12), Vico de Crokeswalle (35), Vico de Avonebury (7½), Vico de la Lone (13½) and Vico de Stonehulle (20¾).  In total some 161¼ burgages are listed.

Besides the burgages in named streets - for which the annual rent was one shilling for a whole and sixpence for a half burgage - there were also market stalls or seldae.  The rent for seldae was threepence or fourpence per annum and Bromyard had 47½ of these.  This was a higher figure than the bishop's other Herefordshire boroughs - Ledbury had 33 and Ross-on-Wye only 9.

Bromyard in the later 13^th century.  The original borough had expanded considerably since its foundation.

The Red Book details the holdings of the burgesses at this time with 230 named persons holding 161½ burgages.  There were a further 47½ market stalls or seldae held by 26 people.

A calculation based on probable household numbers gives a population of between 1100 and 1500.  This may be the highest level of population that Bromyard reached for another 600 years.

Street Names -

A: Veteri Vico

B: Novo Vico

C: Vico de la Lone

D: Vico de Crokeswalle

E: Vico de Stonhulle

F: Vico de Meydeneswelle?
G: Vico de Avonebury?

A total of 26 tenants rented the 47½ market stalls.  There were varying sizes of holdings - from one half, in the case of Wittms Bilon, up to the six stalls rented by Willus Talp.  At some stage these seldae would have become more permanent in character, gradually evolving into buildings which, as in most medieval towns, came to encroach upon the original market area.  Exactly when this process began is not easy to establish, but as early as 1273 a grant specifies a 'solda edificata de Ledebyre' implying that this process of creating permanent structures - edifices - in the market place had begun by that date in Ledbury.  Whether the Bromyard seldae were permanent in the later 13^th century is therefore not known.

By 1575 Novo Vico had been anglicised to New Streate.  The eastern half is now Broad Street

Another survey of Bromyard was undertaken for the Bishop of Hereford, by Swithin Butterfield, in 1575.  This survey lists 170 burgages and 7 tenements, compared with the 160¾ burgages in the Red Book.  However, multiple holdings had become commonplace and the number of named burgage holders is considerable less than in the Red Book.

In 1664 the hearth tax returns recorded 164 houses in Bromyard.  This compared with 227 in Ledbury and 226 in Ross-on-Wye.  In 1676 the Compton Census recorded the population of Bromyard as 938 conformists, 4 papists and 31 non-conformists.  Leominster (1603, 6 and 105), Ledbury (1016, 0 and 2) and Ross (1071, 24 and 110) were all more populous.

Bromyard in the 16th century.  Map based on Williams 1987, pp 48 and 49.

Street Names -

A: Shurforde Streate

B: New Streate

C: Mylborowe Lane

D: Croxewall Streate

E: Nunwalle Streate

F: Maydewell Lane

G: Bowbury Streate

In 1970 historian Joe Hillaby suggested that Bromyard may have had a smaller population in 1801 than it did in the late 13^th century.  Certainly the figure for the latter is not likely have been less than about 1200 while the 1801 figure was only 983.

The evidence for variation in the population of Bromyard in the post-medieval period is ambiguous.  A study of the parish registers, which date from 1538, has shown that in almost every 10-year period, baptisms exceeded burials.  In the 16^th century the town, threatened with the closure of their grammar school pleaded ‘The Towne of Bromyard ys a markett towne and greatly Replenyshed with People’.  The hearth tax returns for Lady Day 1664 recorded a total of 164 inhabited houses in Bromyard.

Certainly some vigour seems to be apparent in the illegitimacy figures, which start fairly high and then fall in the early to mid 17^th century.  From that point the figures rise in the late 17^th through 6%, to 8% in the early 18^th.  In 1755 illegitimate births accounted for 10% of the total - in 1770 15%; in 1845 16%; in 1852 17% and in 1853 18%.  This early Victorian figure may be compared with a 1972 figure of 11%.

The local church can scarcely have been pleased with these statistics.  Certainly in Lent most other forms of entertainment were discontinued.  In 1869 the Hereford Times reported of Bromyard that 'it was thought good by our reverend vicar to make just one exception to this general rule when Colonel Beville, just returned from the Abyssinian war was permitted to give a lecture’.

Taking the parish register evidence that infant baptisms consistently exceed burials into account, the factor that limits Bromyard's population must be emigration, a common enough occurrence in small non-industrial towns at the time.

The census figures for Bromyard show that there was a moderate growth in population between 1801 and 1841.  A drop of 15.2% between 1831 and 1841 is apparently connected with a change in the Poor Law.  It had been the custom of surrounding parishes to move their poor into Bromyard because of the low rents of cottages there.  In 1836 the law was changed to prevent this and, as a consequence, the population figures dropped and the census returns indicate that some 39 houses remained unoccupied in 1841.

Houses in Rowberry Street. This was once called Back Street, and was originally the lane running behind the burgage plots on the north side of Novo Vico. In 1850 a drain in this street received not only the waste from houses but also that from a slaughterhouse. 

Despite the evidence of the parish registers, one of the contributory factors limiting Bromyard's population growth may have been ill health.  In 1850, Benjamin Herschel Babbage, Superintendent Inspector, reported to the General Board of Health on a Preliminary Enquiry into the Sewerage, Drainage and Supply of Water and the Sanitary Conditions of the Inhabitants of the Town of Bromyard.  At the time, only 11 places in the country had a higher mortality rate than Bromyard, and he commented that 'during the short period of my stay I was struck by the frequent tolling of the passing bell’.  The mortality rate Babbage records in 1850 was 27.5.  At the time the national average for England and Wales was 22.2%.  The Herefordshire folklorist, Ella Mary Leather, wrote that in 1909 an old inhabitant of Bromyard could remember that mourners would carry sprigs of rosemary and then throw them into the grave:  Bromyard must have grown a lot of rosemary.

The Babbage Report describes the drainage of Bromyard.  It was common for drains from privies at the back of houses to pass underneath them to public drains in the street outside.  The former drains were not sealed and fumes from them filled the houses.  In the streets, many of the public drains were uncovered – ‘Another public drain which runs down Pump Street and passes by the side of the large tanyard was uncovered and formed a black foetid ditch having a surface of about 80 sq. yards’.

Pump Street, the site of foetid open drain in 1850, has changed considerably.

The south side of Broad Street, the area immediately to the north of the present site, was one of the locations particularly prone to visitations of fever.  Sheep Street (now Old Road) too was a place where typhus fever often struck – 27 inhabitants had died there in the two years preceding Mr Babbage’s report.

The drains in the streets may have been long established – at any rate Babbage makes no mention of their origin.  They were clearly offensive – a drain in Back Street, now Rowberry Street, received not only the waste from houses but also that from a slaughterhouse. 

The drain in Pump Street, referred to above, originated in Sheep Street and received surface water from the surrounding valley.  From Sheep Street the drain ran down High Street and into Pump Street where after a short distance it went ‘into the fields near Mr Jenks’ tanyard’.

Bromyard in 1903.  Based on the OS 1:2500 plan of that year. A railway designed to connect Bromyard to Worcester was opened between Worcester and Yearsett, three miles short of Bromyard, in 1874, but it was not until 1877 that it reached Bromyard itself.  A line from Leominster to Steens Bridge opened in 1884, but it was another 13 years before the final section was opened to Bromyard.

Much of the material on this page is derived from the book ‘Bromyard, Minster, Manor and Town’ by Phyllis Williams.  Information on historic Bromyard is available from the Bromyard and District Local History Society - www.bromyardhistory.org.uk.  Archaeological records for Bromyard are available from Historic Herefordshire On Line. See also www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HEF/Bromyard/

There is a Heritage Centre in Rowberry Street.

Bromyard also hosts an annual folk festival – visit www.bromyard-folk-festival.org.uk

Selected Bibliography