| Background
History to the 15th century
The 'Town Ditch'
and the park
The Ancient Core of Weobley
The
extent of the medieval borough
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Projects
Dairy Farm
Parkfields
Pugh's Yard
The
Old Corner
House
Weobley
Castle
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Weobley lies in a shallow valley and
is bisected by the Marl Brook, which
flows north through the village to
its confluence with the Stretford
Brook, which in turn flows westward
into the River Arrow. The underlying
geology is the Raglan Mudstone formation
of the Old Red Sandstone.
That there was Roman activity around
the village of Weobley is suggested
by field-name evidence in the west
of the parish (Richardson,
p458) and a small number of Roman
coins have been found in the village
itself. Early Germanic immigrants
commonly utilised existing Romano-British
farmland for the obvious reason that
it was already there and such land
was often extended or renamed by them.
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The
name Weobley derives from the Old
English personal name Wibba and in
Domesday is Wibelai, Wibba’s
clearing. Wibba appears as an
element in Webbery (Wibba’s
BURG) in Devon and Webton in Herefordshire
where the hundred of Webtree is also
derived from the name. The second
element of the name, leah, implies
a glade or clearing in woodland. |
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Before
the Norman Conquest Weobley was held
by Edwi, who seems to have been a
minor member of the English nobility.
Edwi also held several other Herefordshire
manors and his western Herefordshire
holdings may reflect some sort of
English colonisation of Welsh lands.
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Immediate
confiscation of the property of English
landlords seems not to have been a
deliberate policy of the Conqueror,
who took pains to conform to a show
of legality. Although the lands
of Harold Godwinson and other ‘rebels’
were forfeit, and were distributed
among the Norman leaders, other English
landholders may have retained their
manors for some years. |
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View
the web-site of the
Weobley and district Local History
Society
Weobley was one of the settlements
assessed by the Central Marches Historic Towns
Survey (1992-6). The report is available to download
from the
Archaeological Data Service website.
Archaeological sites in Weobley can
be viewed at
Historic Herefordshire On Line.
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