Weston under Penyard is a small village in

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 England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 1,007. It lies on the

A40 road A4 most often refers to: *A4 paper, a paper size defined by the ISO 216 standard, measuring 210 × 297 mm A4 and variants may also refer to: Science and mathematics * British NVC community A4 (''Hydrocharis morsus-ranae - Stratiotes aloide ...

two miles east 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 ...

. The Penyard is a prominent hill. The parish church of

St Lawrence Saint Lawrence or Laurence ( la, Laurentius, lit. " laurelled"; 31 December AD 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roman ...

has a tall 14th-century west tower which had a spire until it was damaged by lightning in 1750. A

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

was constructed at Buryhill during the early 19th century but was disused by 1964. The building was subsequently converted for use as private residence. Slightly to the east under farmland lies the former

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

settlement of

Ariconium ''Ariconium'' was a road station of Roman Britain mentioned in Iter XIII of the ''Iter Britanniarum'' of the Antonine Itineraries. It was located at Bury Hill in the parish of Weston under Penyard, about east of Ross on Wye, Herefordshire, and ...

, which gave its name to the historical Welsh Kingdom spanning areas of what is now known as Herefordshire

Ergyng Ergyng (or Erging) was a Welsh kingdom of the sub-Roman and early medieval period, between the 5th and 7th centuries. It was later referred to by the English as ''Archenfield''. Location The kingdom lay mostly in what is now western Herefordsh ...

and

Archenfield Archenfield (Old English: ''Ircingafeld'') is the historic English name for an area of southern and western Herefordshire in England. Since the Anglo-Saxons took over the region in the 8th century, it has stretched between the River Monnow and R ...

. The name Ariconium is

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

and may conceivably have an equivalent in or near the

province of

Galatia Galatia (; grc, Γαλατία, ''Galatía'', "Gaul") was an ancient area in the highlands of central Anatolia, roughly corresponding to the provinces of Ankara and Eskişehir, in modern Turkey. Galatia was named after the Gauls from Thrace (c ...

. Herefordshire escaped most of the battles with the Vikings but in 914 the Danes made additional visits to the area and ravaged

, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (AD 915, Worcester Manuscript, p. 99). The jarls leading the raids, Ohtor and Hroald, captured Bishop Cameleac or Cyfeiliog, then the

Bishop of Llandaff The Bishop of Llandaff is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff. Area of authority The diocese covers most of the County of Glamorgan. The bishop's seat is in the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (the site of a ...

; he was later ransomed. The jarls were killed in a subsequent battle at "Kill Dane Field" in Weston-under-Penyard and the raiders were subdued. The Bristol merchant

Richard Amerike Richard ap Meryk, anglicised to Richard Amerike (or Ameryk) ( 1440–1503) was an Anglo-Welsh merchant, royal customs officer and, at the end of his life, sheriff of Bristol. Several claims have been made for Amerike by popular writers of the la ...

(c. 1445–1503) who, it is claimed, gave his name to

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, was born here. On the edge of the village is Bollitree Castle, which is currently owned by ''

The Grand Tour ''The Grand Tour'' is a British motoring television series, created by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and Andy Wilman, made for Amazon exclusively for its online streaming service Amazon Prime Video, and premiered on 18 Novembe ...

'', and former ''

Top Gear Top Gear may refer to: * "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission Television * ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme * ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...

'', presenter Richard Hammond. It comprises a house built circa 1700 incorporating the remains of an earlier building, to which castellated walls, turrets and moat were added in the late eighteenth century. Two miles south west are the fragmentary remains of Penyard Castle, a fourteenth-century castle on the site of which was built a seventeenth-century house. Penyard House is a Georgian building which now operates as a hotel.

Railways

Weston under Penyard Halt was a former station on the

Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway The Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway (also known as the Gloucester and Dean Forest Railway), was a railway which ran for linking Hereford and Gloucester, England, via Ross-on-Wye. It was opened on 1 June 1855 as a broad gauge line, it ...

on the section between

and Grange Court and thence to

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

. Opened in 1929 to compete with local road transport it was located on the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

line linking

and

. Nothing remains of the station.Cross, AG (1982) Old Industrial Sites in Wyedean, Self Published P106

References

External links

*
Herefordshire County Council page
*No longer extant reference
Weston under Penyard at Vision of BritainOld photos of Weston under Penyard
{{authority control Villages in Herefordshire Folly castles in England