Brockhampton is a village and

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 authorit ...

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 Monmouthsh ...

, England. The village is near the River Wye, south east of Hereford, north of

Ross-on-Wye Ross-on-Wye ( Welsh: ''Rhosan ar Wy'') is a market town in England, near the border with Wales. It had a population of 10,582 according to the 2011 census, estimated at 11,309 in 2019. It lies in south-eastern Herefordshire, on the River Wye ...

, and south west of Ledbury. The

Wye Valley Walk The Wye Valley Walk ( cy, Llwybr Dyffryn Gwy) is a long distance footpath in Wales and England following the course of the River Wye. History In 1975 the Wye Valley Walk opened with a stretch between St. Arvans and Monmouth. Further stretc ...

passes through Brockhampton. The parish forms part of the Old Gore

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

Herefordshire Council Herefordshire Council is the local government authority for the county of Herefordshire in England. It is a unitary authority, combining the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district. History The council was formed on 1 April 1998 followi ...

. Prior to 1998, it had been part of the district of

South Herefordshire South Herefordshire was one of nine local government districts of the English county of Hereford and Worcester from 1974 to 1998. History South Herefordshire District was formed on 1 April 1974 as part of a general reorganisation of local admini ...

Hereford and Worcester Hereford and Worcester was an English non-metropolitan county created on 1 April 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 from the areas of the former administrative county of Herefordshire, most of Worcestershire (except Halesowen, Stourbridge ...

. The population of the parish in 2011 was 229. The two most significant buildings in the village are Brockhampton Court and

All Saints' Church All Saints Church, or All Saints' Church or variations on the name may refer to: Albania *All Saints' Church, Himarë Australia * All Saints Church, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory * All Saints Anglican Church, Henley Brook, Western Aust ...

. Brockhampton Court was substantially rebuilt, in the neo-Tudor style in 1893, as the Herefordshire residence of A.W. Foster and his American wife, Alice. In the late 1870s, Eben Dyer Jordan of Boston, Massachusetts had purchased Brockhampton Court, now a retirement home, as a wedding present for his daughter and her groom, Arthur Foster. The Park, Brockhampton is the local cricket ground.

All Saints' Church

The construction of nearby

, financed by Mr and Mrs Foster (as a memorial to her parents), was completed in 1902, the work of the Arts & Crafts pioneer

W.R. Lethaby William Richard Lethaby (18 January 1857 – 17 July 1931) was an English architect and architectural historian whose ideas were highly influential on the late Arts and Crafts and early Modern movements in architecture, and in the fields of co ...

. Straddling a sloping south-facing site, the first impression of All Saints' is that of a traditional English thatched church. In fact, Lethaby's ingenious 'partnership' of a thatched roof sitting on top of un-reinforced cast-concrete roof, pre-dated current thermal insulation thinking by more than a century. The interior's most striking feature is the lofty vaulted roof, formed of four bays of lime-washed shuttered concrete, divided by slender sandstone arches (the stone came from the now-redundant local Capler quarry). At Brockhampton, Lethaby predicted the Modern Movement's short-lived passion for patterned concrete surfaces, by leaving the internal face of the Nave's roof lining unplastered. The architect's decision to carry out the entire project using direct labour craftsmen (eschewing the conventional building contractor route) is thought to have been a contributing factor to his subsequent ill health and decision to concentrate on teaching and writing. All Saints' Brockhampton was Lethaby's last significant building. Randall Wells served as his resident architect on site. In ''The Buildings of England - Herefordshire'',

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

describes All Saints' as "perhaps the most thrilling church in any country of the years between

historicism Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely ...

and the

Modern Movement Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

". In the introductory section of the revised edition of ''Herefordshire'', All Saints' Brockhampton is described as "One of the most convincing and impressive churches of its date in any country". The church contains many examples of

Christopher Whall Christopher Whitworth Whall (1849 – 23 December 1924) was a British stained-glass artist who worked from the 1880s and on into the 20th century. He is widely recognised as a leader in the Arts and Crafts Movement and a key figure in t ...

’s stained glass work. The Hotel Monterey Grasmere

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

, Japan features a three-quarter scale replica of the church as a wedding venue on the 21st and 22nd floors of a tower block.HOW A CHURCH WAS FAITHFULLY RECREATED – IN A SKYSCRAPER ''Daily Express '' Saturday 24 October 2009
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References

External links

Village websiteBrockhampton Court
{{authority control Villages in Herefordshire Civil parishes in Herefordshire