The Origins of Hereford City

By the mid 8th century the River Wye formed a border between two culturally distinct entities. To the south the speakers of early Welsh inhabited the kingdom of Glywysing and followed the teachings of the native British church. To the north the speakers of early English were subjects of the Mercian kingdom and followed the practices imported by St Augustine.

To the English speakers, the Celtic speakers of Britain were Weallus - foreigners - a word related to Walloon and Vlach, and possibly implying those people occupying what had previously been Roman Imperial territories. The western Celts referred to themselves as Britons - they came to use also Combrogi - fellow-countrymen, later the term Cymru - companions was used. To the British, the English speakers were Sais. The incomers were mainly two ill-defined groups - Angles, moving westward from East Anglia and into Mercia (the 'march' or 'border'), and Saxons, specifically the West Saxons from Gloucestershire. After the destruction of English power in 1066, the British were to face a new and terrible enemy - y Freinc - the French, as the Normans were referred to in Wales.

The origin of Hereford, on the border between these two peoples, is extremely obscure. One story is that Hereford was site of the cathedral of a British bishopric with its origins in Roman times and transferred from Magnis - this does not seem likely. Another story, of the foundation of the church of Caerfawydd (Hereford) by Gereint son of Erbin, a hero of Welsh legend, is a forgery by the poet and antiquary Edward Williams ('Iolo Morganwg', 1747-1826). The modern Welsh name for Hereford is Henfordd - 'the old way' - and this name was certainly in use in the later middle ages, but the story that the earliest name for the place was Caerfawydd or Trefawydd - 'of the birch trees' - is also medieval and cannot be ignored.
 

Archaeological evidence suggests that there might have been a settlement in Hereford as long ago as the Mesolithic period. Other finds indicate human activity in the Neolithic and through to the Iron Age. Roman finds are also fairly common within the city. People would always have used the land for something - hunting, grazing livestock, growing crops, living on. As a continuous settlement - a place where numbers of people larger than family groups live - Hereford's origins are much more recent.

The Victoria Footbridge over the Wye at Hereford. At this point was the ford which gave the town its name. John Leland described this in the early 16th century - 'by the whiche many passyd over, or evar the great bridge on Wy at Herford were made'

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The park now known as the Castle Green in Hereford is, as the name suggests, the site of Hereford's castle. Before the castle was built in the 11th century this was the site of the monastery of St Guthlac. During two excavations here, in 1960 and 1973, over 132 skeletons were found and some of these were carbon 14 dated. The results suggest that the cemetery may have been in use as early as the late 7th or early 8th century.

On the western side of the present city centre, buried beneath the, later, Mercian defensive bank, archaeologists discovered grain-drying kilns dating from the 8th century.

It remains uncertain whether the builders of the grain-drying kilns or the first people buried in the cemetery should be considered 'Welsh' or 'English'. What is certain is that they would not have considered that they were in such a country as 'Wales' or 'England'.

Although legend says that a certain Putta was created bishop of Hereford in the late 7th century, there is no contemporary record of a bishop at that time (the first record of a bishop of Hereford only dates from 801). It cannot be proven that the immediate area of the City of Hereford itself was within the area governed by the Mercians until well into the 8th century.