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Two
kilometres south of Dewsall is the village of
Much Dewchurch.
The earliest reference to what is believed to
be Much Dewchurch is in around 620 when the abbot
of Dewchurch (Guordoce abbas Lann Deui)
appears in a witness list.
In
about 728 Morheb was abbot at Much Dewchurch
(Lann Deui) and in about 745 Lann Deui
was one of the churches returned to Bishop Berthwyn.
As Lann Deui ros cerion, Much Dewchurch
was still clearly within the Ergyng diocese in
the time of William I when Bishop Herewald ordained
Cinan son of Gritiau to the church there.
In
Domesday, Ralph de Tony, of Clifford
Castle, held Dewsall of the King, and William
and Ilbert, in turn, held it of Ralph. Wulfheah
had held it in 1066. The name Dewsall does
not appear in Domesday where the entry is ‘Radulf
de Todeni ten Westuode’ - Westuode being
the ‘west’ wood or possibly ‘waste’
wood. The identification of this manor with
Dewsall is possible because of a marginal entry
‘Dewiswell’ in the Domesday
Book (Herefordshire).
It
is noticeable that the places with churches and/or
priests recorded in Domesday, and the list of
churches and priests listed in the LL as
being in Ergyng, are, with the curious exception
of Llanwarne, mutually exclusive.
In
Domesday there was one hide in lordship with two
ploughs and a slave. It was also entered
that St Mary of Lyre held the church of this manor,
together with a priest and land for one plough.
The parish is named in the taxatio of Pope
Nicholas IV of about 1291 as being attached to
the Priory of Lire in Normandy with the presentations
to the living being made by the Knights of St
John of Jerusalem.
The
Clifford connection
was still extant in the 13th century,
when Dewsall was held by John Thurville as half
a fee of Walter de Dunre of the honour of Clifford,
by knight service. Walter himself held of
Sir Walter de Clifford. Dewsall, 'although
in Archenfield', was held on a different tenure
from the rest of the hundred.
In
the late 13th century Joan la Seculere
owned land at Dewsall and in 1322 John Iwayn (‘slain
by John de Moubray and his adherents in the late
rebellion’) left a messuage and 30 acres
of land and 3 of pasture.
Although Dewsall now has only one access road,
the current OS maps show it as the focus of footpaths
radiating in several directions. A map of
1754 by Isaac Taylor, shows a road branching from
the main Hereford to Ross-on-Wye road north of
Callow, to run through Dewsall on its way to Much
Dewchurch. The through road to Much Dewchurch
on Taylor's map is now represented by a footpath,
leaving the road to the north, to Callow and Hereford
as the only metalled access to Dewsall. A
footpath to the north-west leads, via Monkhall
Farm and Allensmore, to the village of Madley,
alleged to have been the Birthplace of St Dyfrig.
Another footpath leads to the south-east, and
the modern settlements of Much and Little Birch.
From this footpath a branch around the north side
of nearby Aconbury Hill to Kings Pitts and then
to Holme Lacy and Dinedor.
For
many years the church at Dewsall, dedicated to
St Michael, was dated to around 1340. A
wooden south porch has been ascribed to the 14th
century, as has the font. In 1931
The Royal
Commission on Historic Monuments dated the
round-arched south doorways to the 13th
or 14th century date and again in 1931,
a Mr J Charles Wall, FSA, a guest of the then
rector, suggested that some of the masonry was
Norman. Commenting on the RCHM dating of
the doorways, Pevsner
(1963) queried – ‘Why can they
not be earlier?’ More recently
the Department of the Environment (1986) inspectors,
who considered that there were possibly 12th
century elements in the structure, have reinforced
the tendency towards the earlier dating.
The earliest monuments in the church record Anne
Rogers and Grace Clement who died in 1629.
The church was heavily restored in the 19th
century.
In
the churchyard, to the south of the church, is
a 14th century stone
cross. Churchyard crosses are relatively
common in Herefordshire, there being some 116
recorded in the county. Only
Somerset, with 175, has more. In this
cross is a rounded top niche, a feature which
is predominately confined to Herefordshire, where
there are at least 37 of them. With the
exception of one in Berkshire, all the other recorded
niches occur in counties contiguous to Herefordshire
with 5
in Worcestershire, 3 in Shropshire, 2 in Monmouthshire
and one in Gloucestershire.
The
relationship of the church at Dewsall with the
monastery at Lyre occasionally led to the presentment
being in the king’s hands, such as happened
in 1407 when Richard Parpaynt replaced the late
Thomas Mulward. The vicarage being ‘in
the king’s gift by reason of the temporalities
of the alien priory of Lyre being in his hands
on account of the war with France’.
Another presentation to Dewsall, a few weeks later,
uses the same formula, as does one of 1414.
Images
courtesy of
Hereford City Library
Archaeological
records from Dewsall are held by Historic
Herefordshire On Line. See also
www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HEF/Dewsall/ |
