Avenbury is a

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...

, England. It is on the

A465 The A465 is a trunk road that runs from Bromyard in Herefordshire, England to Llandarcy near Swansea in South Wales. The western half is known officially as the Neath to Abergavenny Trunk Road, but the section from Abergavenny to the Vale of N ...

, just south of

Bromyard Bromyard is a town in Herefordshire, England, in the valley of the River Frome. It lies near the county border with Worcestershire on the A44 between Leominster and Worcester. Bromyard has a number of traditional half-timbered buildings, inclu ...

, and by the River Frome. The population of this parish at the 2011 Census was 225.

History

Avenbury was mentioned on the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

. The village that was centred on the church of St Mary has now disappeared leaving the parish consisting of a series of farms and hamlets. In the post-medieval period the village had a barn and several lime kilns as well as houses.

Parish church

The church was founded ca. 840 AD but rebuilt in Norman times; the tower was built in the 13th century. The church was closed in 1931. Many of the

Baskerville Baskerville is a serif typeface designed in the 1750s by John Baskerville (1706–1775) in Birmingham, England, and cut into metal by punchcutter John Handy. Baskerville is classified as a Serif#Transitional, transitional typeface, intended as a ...

family are buried in the churchyard. Three of the bells were rehung in

St Andrew by the Wardrobe St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe is a Church of England church located on Queen Victoria Street, London in the City of London, near Blackfriars station. History First mentioned around 1170, St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe was almost certainly founded conside ...

, London, in 1933. In May 2007 the church, which had been acquired by a

pagan Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...

and artist named Leszek Skuriat in the 1970s was put up for sale and a trust created to buy it for preservation. In June 2009 St Mary's church was bought by a local archaeologist. In conjunction with

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

, restoration work on the church has commenced: St Mary's is a Grade II* listed building, a scheduled monument and is on the

Heritage at Risk Register An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for actio ...

References

* *

External links

* * * {{authority control Villages in Herefordshire