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The Benedictine
Priory of St Peter, St Paul and St Guthlac, a daughter house
of St Peter’s Abbey in Gloucester, commonly known simply
as St Guthlac’s, was established in this area in the
1140’s having previously been within the grounds of
Hereford Castle. The history of the priory is summarised
in Ron Shoesmith’s paper, St Guthlac’s Priory,
in the 1984 Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists Field
Society, the best introduction to the subject, while additional
information is to be found in his (1996 desk-based survey of Hereford County Hospital.
The site occupies the northern tip of the priory grounds.
To
the north-west the site fronts onto Commercial Road.
This street appears to be the original road approaching Hereford
from the north-east and would have led to the Saxon north
gate of the city at the north end of what is now Broad Street.
After the Norman Conquest burgage plots appear to have been
laid out on both sides of the street. Commercial Road
was earlier known as Bishopsgate Street and Bye-street-without,
and, for the greater part of the first half of the 19th
century as
New Street.
The length of street immediately adjacent
to the site is marked as ‘Stonebow’ on
Joseph Jones and Sons’ map of 1866.
The
south-eastern boundary of the site is formed by the north-western
flank of a terrace of 20th century houses fronting onto Stonebow
Road and an area to the to the rear of these, adjacent to
the Eign Brook. This latter area, at the time the field
project was running, was occupied by the temporary offices
of contractors for the construction of the new Hereford Hospital.
The
present Stonebow Road, which forms the south-western boundary
of the site, had several names the later 19th century.
It is not named on Timothy Curley’s map of 1858 but
on Joseph Jones and Sons’ map of 1866 it is St Guthlac’s
Priory Lane. In 1882 it is referred to as
Slaughterhouse Road.
By 1890 it was simply ‘Priory Lane’
but Kelly’s Directory for 1891 lists it as ‘Stonebow
Road priory’. By the early years
of the 20th century it had become Stonebow Road.
The
name ‘Stonebow Road’ was earlier applied
to the road which later became Barrs Court Road and which
is so marked on Curley’s map. The plan of the City of
Hereford by Joseph Jones and Sons in 1866, shows a Stonebow
Road running from the Stonebow, past the front of the Shrewsbury
and Hereford Railway’s passenger station, and on to
meet Burcott Row. The 1891 Kelly’s Directory lists,
as well as the ‘Stonebow Road priory’
mentioned above, a ‘Stonebow rd. Ayleston
Hill’
A
house shown on Isaac Taylor’s map of Hereford (1757)
as being situated on the site of what was to become the county
gaol and then the bus station, may originally have been one
of the buildings of the medieval priory. In 1776 an
advertisement to let ‘late the Residence of William
Symond’s MD’ and possessing acres of fine
meadow land ‘being part of the Old Priory Lands’.‘the
Priory house and Garden – for particulars apply to Mr
William Symonds, Mercer’ appeared in the Hereford
Journal. This house was demolished to
enable the construction of John Nash’s new county gaol
in the 1790s (Shoesmith
and Crosskey, 1994). The property, described as
‘a house and plot called the Priory’,
was purchased from William Symonds (Shoesmith, 1996).
By
1831 a second house called ‘The Priory’
existed a short distance to the east for in that year a house
was advertised as being ‘late
the Residence of William Symond’s MD’ and
possessing acres of fine meadow land ‘being part
of the Old Priory Lands’.
In 1851 and
1858 this house was occupied
by a local solicitor, Henry Child Beddoe, who
was later to become mayor of Hereford on three occasions.
By 1867
the building had become ‘The Castle’ public
house with Edward Morgan as the licensee, at ‘The
Priory, Commercial road’ and Mr Beddoe had relocated
to the more salubrious 28 Castle Street.
In October 1866 the new slaughterhouse, replacing the
earlier one in Blueschool Street marked on Wood's 1836 map,
had opened adjacent to the house (Shoesmith, 1996) and may have precipitated this change
of use.
The
lane which ultimately became Stonebow Road, gave access to
this later house, and although not shown on the tithe map
of 1842 seems to be suggested by a dotted line parallel to
a solid line on John Wood’s map of 1836. The road
is clearly marked on Curley’s 1858 map leading to the
house marked ‘Priory’.
The
Eign Brook, known here as the Stonebow brook, and also known
as the Smallpurse, Scutt Mill, Tan, Widemarsh or Yazor Brook
at various times and in different stretches, forms the north-east
boundary of the site. The Eign seems to have formed
a boundary of the priory, which is described as having
‘a
rivulet called Eigne, running under the walls’.
The
Eign was of great importance to medieval and post-medieval
Hereford. Its waters not only filled the city ditch,
but also provided the main source of power for the mills of
the city until these were replaced by steam power in the first
half of the 19th century.
As
the Yazor brook, the Eign flows east into Hereford from the
township of Huntington crossing under Three Elms Road at 349100/241400.
From this point it flows through areas that were in the 19th
century known as Fuster’s or Faster’s Moor, Prior’s
Moor, Wide-marsh and Monk’s Moor, and is fed by several
springs along the way. The Ayles Brook, flowing south
from the parish of Holmer, and thence via the racecourse and
under Mortimer Road now joins the Eign at the northern end
of Widemarsh Street.
For
virtually their entire lengths within the city boundaries,
both of these streams flow through man-made courses.
In the early 19th century the Eign meandered across
low-lying meadowland to the north and east of the city before
flowing into the Wye below Eign Bridge. Even by that time its course had been interrupted
and diverted for several centuries. An early weir to divert
part of the flow to feed the city ditch was part of Hereford’s
medieval defensive system, and downstream of that diversion,
channels and millponds were constructed to power a series
of water-mills. In the early 19th century
these were, in turn, Widemarsh Mill, approximately where Prior
Street joins Edgar Street, Monkmoor Mill (originally a possession
of St Guthlac’s priory)
opposite the priory gates, Scutt Mill on the Ledbury Road
and Eign Mill on Eign Road.
The
city ditch branch of the Eign (the Canonmoor or ‘Canny’
Brook) also powered several mills situated immediately outside
the city walls, the last remaining of which, Castle Mill,
closed in the 1850s. At the Friars, to the east of the
city, a glove manufactory (gloves were a major product of
post-medieval Hereford) may also originally have been water
powered.
A
watercourse shown on the St Peter’s Parish Tithe
map of 1843 and Curley’s 1858 map, formed part of the
boundary between that parish and the parish of St Owen and
joined the Eign at Scutt Mill. Its visible point of
origin is to the east of the workhouse but, as a source is
unlikely at that point, it was presumably culverted there
from Monkmoor Mill (Shoesmith, 1996).
The
management of these streams would always have had the potential
to cause disputes between the various interested parties.
In 1566 complaints were made that
Gregory Pryce had turned the watercourse at Monkmoor.
In 1775, John Grainger, the miller at Castle
Mill, offered a reward of five guineas for information about
‘the several persons [who] have, by night
and otherwise, diverted the water out of the stream that supplies
the said Castle Mills, whereby in a dry season very little
water flows therein’.
Again, in 1828 a sub-committee of the Improvement
Commissioners was to view the state in which
the water is pounded up by Mr Phillips at the Stonebow and Monkmoor
Land and to ascertain of Mr George (The owner of Monkmoor
Mill, at this time a fulling mill) the proper height that
the water should be raised to, that a Marke may be fixed on
the Stonebow Bridge to prevent disputes in future and that
a piece of timber be laid across the bank where the Weir should
be erected at the back Water Ditch’.
By
the 19th century these mills were sometimes enterprises
of comparatively large scale. In 1825 Eign Mills possessed
‘six pairs of superior French stones and two Water-wheels,
the one breast 20 feet by 7, the other 19 feet by 7, undershot’.
The building was five floors high and had an adjoining warehouse.
In 1826 Castle Mill had
‘four pairs
of excellent French stones’ driven by two water
wheels
; in 1832 its capacity is described as
‘700
bushels of wheat weekly’.
A
weir in the Merton Meadow to divert part of the Eign north
to its present junction with the Ayles
existed by 1809,
and in the mid 19th century the construction
of the railways involved considerable alterations to the course
of the Eign. These created an entirely new channel from
Canon Moor to the Merton Meadow, and caused another change
of course north of Scutt Mill.
The
Ayles Brook appears to have run in an artificial channel as
early as 1809 when a
map of All Saints parish shows it following
an unnaturally straight course. A further adjustment of its course was
caused by the construction of the Hereford and Gloucester
Canal in 1844. In Spring 2000 the Ayles was diverted
yet again to form an ornamental feature within a new retail
park to the north of the junction of Newtown Road and Edgar
Street.
It
appears that the Eign was always liable to flood and in December
1872
flooding was severe enough to endanger the operation
of the gas works opposite the site.
The engineer Timothy Curley was moved to
publish a pamphlet to remind Herefordians that he had suggested
solutions to this problem several years earlier (Curley, 1873).
The
name Stonebow referred to the area on both sides of the north-east
end of Commercial Road. In 1832 there were
‘Durham
cows and heifers with and in calf’ to be sold by
auction at ‘STONEBOW FARM, adjoining the County Gaol,
in the liberties of the City’,
but in the 1851 census, Richard Pritchard, builder
and brickmaker, and his family are recorded as living at Stonebow,
in a census district to the north-west of Commercial Road.
The
origin of the name Stonebow is uncertain,
but its closest association seems to be with the bridge.
In 1576 Elizabeth Lyngen was swept away
by the current near the bridge called
‘le Stonnebowe
in the highway leading from Ayleston to Bishopstrete’
and drowned.
In 1596 the cost of 'stone and gravell
to pave [127 yards or 116 metres] at the stone bow'
was fifteen shillings and eight pence with labour costs
'for the paven' of fifteen shillings at ten pence.
In the 17th century when the parishes of
St John the Baptist and St Peter’s were presented for
not
‘Stonebow-bridge’. ‘seting
Railles and two postes at the sid of the Stonbu Brege’.
In 1854, the engineer Timothy Curley, reporting
on his proposed sewer routes for Hereford refers to
‘Stonebow-bridge’.
Beyond
the immediate area of Stonebow, the land on the opposite side
of Commercial Road was known as Monkmoor, presumable referring
to open land opposite the priory. The cartographic evidence
suggests that, with the exception of Monkmoor Mill, the area
on either side of Commercial Road at this point remained undeveloped
until the early 19th century (Taylor, 1757; Price,
1802), although John Nash’s new county gaol had been
opened in 1796
on a site a little nearer to the town. In
1801 meadow land
‘above 6 acres at the Stone-bow’
was for sale.
The
earliest development at the Stonebow appears to be the construction
of the gas works immediately opposite the site, the land for
which was purchased in 1824 and was described as
‘Meadow
Land at Monkmoor’
.
There seems to have been no domestic occupation
of the area at that time.
The gas works began operating on 3rd
October 1825
when the streets of Hereford and some of its
better shops in High Town were first lit with gas.
A less usual use of coal gas was the filling
of balloons and great excitement was caused in 1827
when a Mr Green and a passenger ascended from the gas works.
The
area became more industrial in character with the opening
of the Hereford and Gloucester Canal in 1845.
By the mid 19th century Commercial Road contained
an eclectic range of properties ranging from residences of
the gentry to the county prison and including a rope and twine
manufacturer, a fellmonger and wool dealer, a patent brick
and tile maker, in addition to the city gasworks.
The
Stonebow end of Commercial Road seems to have contained the
greatest concentration of manufacturing and warehousing operations
centred on Monkmoor Mill. At the Stonebow an artificial
manure manufactory, belonging to a Dr Rowan, was
a long complained of nuisance. A meeting of the city
commissioners in 1853 recorded that on the 29th
May 1852 the stench was so bad that people in the area were
unable to work. The turnkey of the county gaol ‘was obliged
to put himself to the expense of going and getting a glass
of brandy and water (loud laughter)’.
An irony of the proximity of this manufactory and the gas
works to the gaol is that one of the original essentials for
the site of the new gaol was that it should be ‘clear
from the smoake and ill smells of manufactures’
(Shoesmith, 1996, p7).
The
St Peter’s tithe map (1842) shows the site itself as
being the north-western end of an open meadow and the apportionment
records the owner as a James Woodehouse. Curley’s
map of 1858 also shows the site as open land with no visible
structures.
Pressure
increased in the area with the opening of Barrs Court Railway
Station in 1854 and a sales notice of 1870 advertised plots
in the area as being convenient for the railway. The
site was lot 13, described as
‘a piece of freehold
land …. facing Barrs Court Station, having a frontage
of 135 feet to Commercial Road, at present used as a slate
and tile yard. Tenant Joseph Tovey’
On
1st September 1885 the Roads Committee of Hereford
Council granted James Morgan permission to erect a
furniture warehouse on the Commercial Road frontage of
the site.
The architect’s drawings show the structures
which already existed. A small building stood on the
extreme western corner and a large stable occupied most of
the south-western half of the site. Next to the stream,
a narrow range of buildings ran between these stables and
the street. The north-western end of this range consisted
of two cottages; the one nearest the street had two rooms
downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs while the other had
one room downstairs and two up. All of these buildings
appear on the 1886 OS 1:500 1st edition map (fig
4). The new structure, butting the north-western cottage,
does not appear on this map, but must have been completed
shortly after the survey for a directory for the years 1886/1887
lists
'Morgan's Furniture Warehouse' . The
building appears on later maps.
By
1890, according to Jakeman and Carver’s directory, James
Morgan was operating as a furniture remover at ‘Stonebow
house’. This seems not to be the building
that bore that name later because in that year he commissioned
a local architect, G. H. Godsell, to design a
temperance hotel with a shop and cottages.
This was to stand on the corner of Commercial
Road and Priory Road. By 1891 the work had apparently
been completed, and in Kelly’s directory for that year
the following entry appears ‘Morgan, James, close
to Barrs Court Station; good accommodation for commercials,
well aired beds, chops, steaks, dinners, teas &c. Temperance
hotel, Stonebow house, Commercial road’.
By
the end of the 19th century there were three businesses
established on the Commercial Road frontage of the site.
The 1900 Kelly’s Directory lists Stonebow House, on
the corner, as dining rooms. The adjacent site was a
tobacconist and the property next to the stream, T Parry and
Co, furniture removals. By 1909 the last property had
become a motor car dealers, an activity which was to continue
throughout most of the century, expanding to take over the
adjacent properties fronting Commercial Road and spreading
beyond the south-eastern boundary of he 19th century
stables.
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