Rowlestone Court Farmhouse dates from the 14th century and has additions of the 16th and 17th centuries. The house occupies an area which may have originally been the outer bailey of the earthen castle, the motte of which lies to the west of the house.
Since 2005 Rowlestone Court Farm has been in Defra's environmental stewardship scheme and is open to the public. The lime kilns are now on a maintained footpath and wildflowers have been sewn. Rowlestone has an ice-cream parlour which serves freshly-brewed tea and coffee, home-made cakes and filled ciabatta. You can also choose from many flavours of the farm's own ice cream – either to eat in or take away. Visit the Rowlestone Court website. The walks are also featured on the DEFRA website.
In 1750 Rolestone Court was rented to a John Smith for £51 yearly rent. A dispute arose between him and John Scudamore regarding rent arrears and in 1766 he was summoned to appear before the sheriff ‘at the house of James Brown, innholder, commonly known as the New Inn or Blakeneys situate in Widemarsh [street] in the City of Hereford.’
The Land Tax assessments of 1781 through to 1798 record the occupier of the Court at Rowlstone as Edward Valentine. Thomas Price had become the occupier by the time of the 1802 assessments and remained so until 1831. In 1832 Eleanor Price was the occupier.
The tithe map of the parish of 'Rowlston' shows the boundaries of Coed y Geifr and Lakes Wood in the same position as they are now. The accompanying apportionment records the owner of Rowleston Court and the land around as John Lucy Scudamore esq of Kentchurch Park, who was lord of the manor. The occupier of Rowlestone Court, referred to as simply 'The Court', was Eleanor Price who also occupied most of the land in the immediate area, her holdings being 262 acres.
Other tenants of Scudamore in the parish included William Jones who rented 239 acres and James Prosser who rented 31 acres. Coed y Geifr and Lakes Wood were retained in the occupation of Scudamore himself. This was also the pattern in adjacent Ewyas Harold parish where he himself occupied all the woodland that he owned. In both parishes all his other lands were rented.
The woods form part of a larger wooded area on the border of Rowlstone and Ewyas Harold. On the Ewyas Harold side of the boundary, immediately adjoining Coed y Geifr is Cae Newydd Wood (in the ownership and occupancy of Thomas Roberts in 1844), with Paradise Wood to the south of Cae Newyth. Paradise Wood was Gwern Gilvach Wood on the tithe map and was owned and occupied by Scudamore.
The 1909 land valuation has Colonel E S Scudamore as the landowner of the farm which consisted of 261 acres, with John Jehu as the occupier. The woods were still in the occupation of the landowner.
Lakes Wood is the south-western part of the swathe of woodland in the area. The southern, eastern and western edges face onto open pasture land, the southern and western ones being fairly straight. At some stage ploughing in the field to the south and uphill (SO 3827 - 0013) has formed a slight positive lynchet. In the early 19th century this field was not divided from the eastern part of field to the west of the wood, the larger field then being known as The Lake.
To the east the greater part of the boundary of Lake Wood is formed by a stream which originates in a spring in the south-eastern corner of the wood. The field to the east (SO 3827 - 4328) is now open pasture but has had more trees in the comparatively recent past. There is some evidence of quarrying in this field.
Beyond this field to the east is Paradise Wood SO 3827 - 7323). This wood, with its conifers, has the appearance of recent plantation, but was in 1844 Gwern Gilvach Wood, owned and occupied by Scudamore.
Another stream originates on the western boundary of Lake Wood and crosses it in an easterly direction to join the first stream at the extreme north-eastern corner of the wood. The wood itself shows clear evidence of past coppicing. There are many hollows and mounds within the wood but these features were not immediately interpretable. One obvious cause would be the natural falling of trees. Some features may be man made, possible due to quarrying, but the unmanaged state of the wood made identification and interpretation difficult. The northern boundary of Lake Wood runs into another wooded area, which extends north to Coed y Geifr.
This area of the woods lies immediately to the north of Lakes Wood. Its south-eastern boundary is formed by the stream running north-east out of Lakes Wood and its north-eastern boundary by a stream running south-east to join the first stream at the extreme eastern point of the wood. This stream also forms the boundary with Ewyas Harold Parish at this point. This wood is now heavily overgrown, but appears to be of relatively recent origins. In 1842 it is described, together with the field to the west (Tithe apportionment number 104) as grassland. The two together are named Great Pasture and Brakes. A brake appears to occupy the centre of field 74 on the tithe map while the extreme north-eastern and south-eastern edges of the field are dotted off, implying that they too were wooded. The 1887 1st edition OS 6inch to 1 mile map shows rough pasture and heath occupying the south-eastern part of the field while the 1904 1:2500 shows that this had become woodland. This woodland had expanded again by the time the area was again surveyed in the 1930s (OS Ordnance Survey, 1:10560 (6 inches to 1 mile) sheet SO32NE, published in 1964 but from earlier surveying).
Near the stream forming the north-eastern boundary is a pair of lime kilns, in good condition, although the western one has part of a large badger set in its base. The western edge of the wood opens out onto bracken then pasture (OS no SO 3827 - 0046) with no intervening field boundary. A northern arm of this wood stretches along the western side of Coed y Geifr where a stream rises at 3795/2761 to run eastwards into Coed y Geifr.
Coed y Geifr, or in English, Wood of the Goats or Goats Wood extends north from the previously described area of woodland. The same stream that forms the north-eastern boundary of the former wood also forms Coed-y-Geifr’s north-eastern boundary. Although the parish boundary coincides with this stream for a distance of 65 metres north-west from the south-eastern corner of the wood, beyond this the two diverge, the parish boundary being some 40 metres to the south-west of the stream. A section of the wood therefore lies in Ewyas Harold parish. The stream that rises to the west of the wood flows east through it to join the main stream at the wood’s extreme eastern edge.
To the north-east of the stream and lying wholly in Ewyas Harold, is Cae-newydd wood. This wood seems to be an integral part of the woods in this area. Cae-newydd, or ‘new enclosure’ is the name given on the tithe apportionment to two fields the east of the wood with a third called Big Newydd. The name seems likely to have originally applied to these fields, which may possibly be evidence of woodland clearing. It is not evidence that the wood itself was cleared at any time. Cae-Newydd wood and the adjoining fields were owned and occupied by Thomas Roberts in 1844.
To the west and north-west of Coed y Geifr, lying within Rowlstone parish, is a field (OS number SO 3727 - 0086), which was arable in 1842. This was then divided into two fields, the tithe records them as number 151, The Pikes, and 106, The Twelve Acres. To the west of these, and adjoining the lane between Rowlstone and Ewyas Harold, another field (OS number SO 3727 - 5800), again two in 1842 (154 Sacre Field Meadow and 155 Drae Monith – both grass) contains a disused quarry. Eleanor Price farmed all of this land as a tenant of Scudamore.
North of the Pikes, Pikes Wood lies mainly in Ewyas Harold with its southernmost tip in Rowlstone.
Pikes Wood lies on a steep northward facing slope on the boundary between Ewyas Harold and Rowlstone parishes. John Lucy Scudamore owned it in 1842/44 and, as he did with his other woods, also occupied it. Pikes Wood is bounded on the east by another stretch of woodland, Birches Wood, also following the steep contours on the edge of the valley of a stream running east through Ewyas Harold village to join the Dulas Brook.
Thomas Price, recorded at Rowlstone Court in the Land Tax Assessment of 1802, died in 1831 or 1832 leaving a widow, Eleanor. Eleanor continued to run the farm although the 1841 census officer apparently cannot bring himself to use the term farmer of a female.
In 1841 her household consisted of herself, aged 65, and other members of her family, Eleanor junior, Mary, John, James and Robert. There was also a female servant in her thirties, Eliza Wright, and two servant boys, John Rowcot aged 14 and Thomas Elliot aged 13.
By the 1851 census Eleanor had died and John Price was running the farm with the assistance of his brother Robert. John was by this time in his fifties and both he and Robert were unmarried. Their sister, Mary, aged 33 and also unmarried, was described as the housekeeper.
The living-in servants included a 31 year old unmarried waggoner, and a 31 year old unmarried female general servant. There were also two boys aged 16, both described as indoor servants. Although there was one farm worker who did not live-in, these figures seem to indicate a rather large domestic to agricultural ratio.
On the night of the 1851 census (30th March) there were in addition, John Price’s widowed sister, Margaret Barnett and her ten-year-old daughter, Eunice. Mrs Barnett was the licensee of the Tram House, an inn in the parish of Much Dewchurch. This was on the horse drawn railway line between Abergavenny and Hereford, and later became the settlement of Tram Inn with its own station on the fully fledged steam railway.
She seems to have left the inn in the charge of her 17 year old daughter, also called Margaret. Also left at home were daughters Charlotte aged 7, Rachael aged 3 and Anne aged 2. A note on the census says, “Head from home”. In addition to the sisters there were also six male and one female lodgers, a servant, and a visitor. Reflecting the inn’s location on the tram line, the lodgers included a haulier, a labourer and tram-driver, and a labourer in a coal-yard.
In the 1861 census John Price was still the farmer. He was now a bachelor in his 60s, farming 260 acres with the help of two men and three boys. His housekeeper was his unmarried niece, Ann Cooke, aged 25. If other members of the family survived, they were not at Rowlstone, apart from Ann Barnett from the Tram House at Much Dewchurch, by this time aged twelve and described as a scholar. She may have come to visit her Uncle John on the new steam train, getting on at the station next to the inn and getting off at Pontrilas. The other inhabitants were George Gilbert the carter, William Williams the cowherd and thirteen-year-old Thomas Williams, an agricultural labourer.
The 1871 census recorded John Price, now in his seventies, as employing two labourers and two boys on his 260 acre farm. Anne Cooke had been replaced as housekeeper by yet another unmarried niece, Charlotte Barnett from Much Dewchurch. Also in the house was John’s sister Mary, now a widow with the surname Richards, and her daughter Catherine. The servants were one female seventeen-year-old domestic servant and two boys.
Within a few years the association of the Price family with Rowlstone Court Farm had ended. By the 1881 census William Williams, aged 34, was the farmer and lived at Rowlstone with his wife Mary and their five children. Their four-year-old daughter had been born there. William and Mary had been born at Llanthony. John Price and his brothers and sisters had all been born at Rowlstone.
Unpublished report - Unpublished Report - Coed y Geifr and Lakes Wood, Rowlstone Court Farm, Herefordshire: a Tier Two Archaeological Survey - Huw Sherlock and P J Pikes, 2001.
This report is available from the Archaeological Data Service site.
A copy of this report is held in the reference section of Hereford City Library.
