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The
street and property boundary layout
of Weobley possesses elements that
clearly derive from having been planned.
The central core of the village, the
main street leading to the castle
gate with its tenement plots, would
have been part of the de Lacy planted
borough. However, if the area
around the church is included, the
street layout of Weobley possesses
a disconformity, which probably results
from the church pre-dating the new
borough (Beresford,
1988)
A similar layout
exists at Olney in Buckinghamshire,
where there are also two distinct
elements in the village plan, an original
area round the church, and a later
planned borough immediately to the
north (ibid. p107).
If this is the case, then the Parkfields
site is extremely close to the original
centre of the village. The house
platforms which have been identified
adjacent to the church, may be features
associated with Weobley at a time
which pre-dates the borough, the castle,
and the Conquest. Features in
the field to the north of Parkfields,
tentatively identified as a part of
the defensive circuit, may also be
house platforms.
It is possible that the feature excavated
in trench B at the Parkfields site
is associated with an early settlement.
It was certainly man-made and although
probably a gully, may be a beam slot
associated with some structure on
the site.
In the Central Marches Historic Towns
Survey of Weobley in 1996 (Dalwood)
the Parkfields property is identified
as being part of the
medieval churchyard element of
the village, the original churchyard
having been considerably larger than
it is at present.
If this were so, the area would probably
not have been used for burials, being
at some distance from the church.
In any event, when the Vicar of Weobley,
Lancelot Kinsley, sold the property
to Robert Davies in 1598 it was described
as ‘pasture or arable’
[see above]. Kinsley, Vicar
from 1561, was the first incumbent
not appointed by Llanthony Priory,
which had had the living since the
12th century, when it was
granted by Hugh de Lacy I.
The piece of ground purchased by Robert
Davies was bounded to the east by
the town ditch and the Parkfield,
and to the south by land belonging
to Thomas Blyther. The northern
boundary of the property is the Queen’s
highway and the western is Weobley
churchyard. This would seem
to imply that, at that time, the present
lane between Parkfields and the churchyard
did not exist, and that a road leading
north from the centre of Weobley (the
present western part of Church Road)
after turning east past the church,
continued in the direction of Dilwyn.
The line of this road is preserved
as a modern bridle-way.
The inference here is that an older
focus of the village existed in the
area of the church from which roads
led east, south towards the present
village and ultimately Hereford, and
west to the northern part of Meadow
Street.
Robert Davies’s purchase of
the property which formed the house
and garden of Parkfields as it existed
in 2000 AD, seems to have been shortly
followed by the erection of the present
house. The house was in existence
in 1625 when the bequests in Robert’s
will include that of ‘my
house on the right hand side of the
church with lands belonging’,
to his wife, Anne. |
