Lingen 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 ...

, situated in the wooded hills of

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 in the Welsh Marches near to the border with

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

and close to the larger village of Wigmore. Situated in the north-west corner of the county, Lingen parish includes the hamlets of Deerfold, Limebrook, Birtley and Willey. It lies on the Limebrook which runs into the

River Lugg The River Lugg ( cy, Afon Llugwy) rises near Llangynllo in Radnorshire, Wales. It flows through the border town of Presteigne and then through Herefordshire, England, where it meets its main tributary, the River Arrow, to the south of Leomi ...

south of the village. It lies at a height of between 145 and 283 metres above sea level. The village today has a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

– the Royal George – and a sub-post office.

History

Pre-history

The village lies at the southern edge of the ancient

ice sheet In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at La ...

and was sandwiched between two large

post-glacial The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

lakes; one centred on

Presteigne Presteigne (; cy, Llanandras: the church of St. Andrew) is a town and community in Radnorshire, Powys, Wales on the south bank of the River Lugg. Formerly the county town of the historic county of Radnorshire, the town has, in common with sev ...

, the other known to geologists as Wigmore Glacial Lake. Geologically, the region is based entirely on

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozo ...

beds, namely the marine Silurian and sizeable outcrops of Downtonian.

Early history

Occupied since at least the Middle Ages; there is evidence of

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

strip lynchets on a hillside near the village. It is mentioned in 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 is close to the substantial

Mortimer Mortimer () is an English surname, and occasionally a given name. Norman origins The surname Mortimer has a Norman origin, deriving from the village of Mortemer, Seine-Maritime, Normandy. A Norman castle existed at Mortemer from an early point; ...

castle at Wigmore and there is evidence of an early

motte and bailey A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or Bailey (castle), bailey, surrounded by a protective Rampart (fortification ...

castle in the village. It has not been excavated but the former presence of a stone

keep A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in c ...

has been suggested, as well as a 12th-century

gate-house A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the mos ...

, with a curtain wall around the bailey. The village website suggests a

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

origin for the name of the village: ''place of sparkling water''. ''Ling'' is

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

for heather and may be an alternative toponymological derivation. The Institute for Name Studies speculates that the name was originally that of a river. The

manorial Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes forti ...

lordship was held by the Lingen family until the 17th century.

Limebrook Priory

Located just south of the village centre a

nunnery A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican C ...

was founded before the reign of

Richard I Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overl ...

, either by Ralph de Lingen or one of the

s. There is some confusion as to the order to which it belonged, but in the time of Bishop Booth, 1516–35, it was tenanted by

Augustinian Augustinian may refer to: *Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine *Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs *Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo * Canons Regular of Sain ...

nuns and subsisted until the dissolution of the monasteries. Remains now consist of a single ruined building.

Victorian

In 1868 the village was described thus:

St Michael and All Angels Church

Built of stone, the church dates back to the 13th century when the original was built. The current building was substantially repaired in the 19th century and the bell tower turret has attractive wooden shingles. It was re-dedicated on 22 April 1891 by the

Bishop of Hereford The Bishop of Hereford is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury. The episcopal see is centred in the Hereford, City of Hereford where the bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is in the Hereford Cathedr ...

Methodist Chapel

The chapel opened on 26 June 1877 and remains open to this day.

Population

As the

censuses A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

reveal, the village population has been remarkably stable.Herefordshire UA/County England through time , Local history overview for the District/Unitary Authority
/ref> Presumably there was a

charabanc A charabanc or "char-à-banc" (often pronounced "sharra-bang" in colloquial British English) is a type of horse-drawn vehicle or early motor coach, usually open-topped, common in Britain during the early part of the 20th century. It has "ben ...

trip on the night of the 1901 census but the population decline probably reflects the agrarian recession of the time when agricultural workers left the land for better paid jobs in the boom industries of the time – coal mining, quarrying and iron in Shropshire or further afield to South Wales.

Famous associations

Albert Lee Albert William Lee (born 21 December 1943) is an English guitarist known for his fingerstyle and hybrid picking technique. Lee has worked, both in the studio and on tour, with many famous musicians from a wide range of genres. He has also mai ...

(born 21 December 1943), one of the world's greatest guitarists, was born in Lingen. * Ralph Lingen, 1st Baron Lingen, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury *Sir

Henry Lingen Sir Henry Lingen (23 October 1612 – 22 January 1662), Lord of Sutton, Lingen and Stoke Edith, was a Royalist military commander in Herefordshire during the English Civil War, and later a member of parliament. He was the son of Edward Lingen a ...

, Royalist Commander in the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

References

External links

GENUKI pageLingen VillageSt Michael and All Angels ChurchLingen NurseryLingen Loop WalkLingen Pottery
{{authority control Villages in Herefordshire Civil parishes in Herefordshire