Kilpeck ( cy, Llanddewi Cil Peddeg) 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 ...

in the county 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. It is about southwest of Hereford, just south of the A465 road and Welsh Marches Line to Abergavenny, and about from the border with Wales. On the 1st of April 2019 the parishes of Kenderchurch, St Devereux, Treville and

Wormbridge Wormbridge is a village and former civil parish in Herefordshire, England, about eight miles south-west of Hereford, on the A465 road at (). The neighbouring villages are Kilpeck, Didley, Howton, Treville, Ewyas Harold, Pontrilas and Crize ...

were merged with Kilpeck. The village is renowned for its small but outstanding

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

(Romanesque) church, SS Mary and David's, but also has the earthworks of a

motte and bailey castle that is no longer standing. The church is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. There is a public house called the Kilpeck Inn, formerly known as the Red Lion Inn, situated in the centre of the village opposite the village green. Other amenities include a village hall and post office.

History

Until the 9th century, when it was taken over by

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879) Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era= Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ...

, the area around Kilpeck was within the Welsh kingdom of

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 ...

. After the Norman conquest, the area became known as

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 ...

and was governed as part of the Welsh Marches. It became part of Herefordshire, and England, in the 16th century, although the use of Welsh in the area remained strong until the 19th century. The English name for the village derives from the Welsh name, ''Llanddewi Kil Peddeg'', with ''Llanddewi'' meaning "church of St. David" and ''Kil Peddeg'' probably meaning the "cell of Pedic", an otherwise unknown local early Christian

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...

.James Bailey, ''The Parish Church of St Mary and St David at Kilpeck'', 2000 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 manus ...

of 1086, Kilpeck (entered as Chipeete) was given by

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...

to William Fitz Norman

de la Mare Delamare or De la Mare is a surname of Norman origin. Delamare may refer to: * Achille Joseph Delamare (1790-1873), French senator. *Sir Arthur de la Mare (1914–1994), British diplomat * Delphine Delamare (''née'' Couturier, 1822–1848), Frenc ...

, son of Norman de la Mare. The clan de la Mare is one of the oldest in

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

and is descended from

Ragnvald Eysteinsson Rognvald Eysteinsson (''fl.'' 865) was the founding Jarl (or Earl) of Møre in Norway, and a close relative and ally of Harald Fairhair, the earliest known King of Norway. In the Norse language he is known as Rǫgnvaldr Eysteinsson (''Mǿraj ...

, earl of Møre and Romsdal. According to the Domesday survey, Kilpeck had "3 ploughs, 2 serfs and 4 oxmen and there are 57 men with 19 ploughs." There are mentions of a church on the site possibly from as early as the 7th century. There are vestiges of an enclosure, 200 yds (183 metres) by 300 yds (274 m) in the field, defining an Anglo-Saxon village.

Landmarks

The St Mary and St David's Church was built around 1140. It consists of a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

and semicircular

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

. It is remarkable for its wealth (and fine preservation) of

stone carvings, both inside and out, all original both in form and position and incorporating many

corbels In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the st ...

with representations of human faces, hares, fish, fowl, stags etc. Eighty-five of 91 corbels survive, an extraordinarily high percentage. RemainsOfKilpeckCastle(PhilipHalling)Feb2006

RemainsOfKilpeckCastle(PhilipHalling)Feb2006

West of the church lies a ruined motte-and-bailey and earthworks. The castle is thought to have been first built around 1090 as the administrative centre of

. A few walls of the 12th or 13th-century keep still stand on top of the motte; these are not well preserved. A fireplace and chimney flues are visible and two sections of standing castle walls.KILPECK CASTLE
''historicengland.org.uk'', accessed 8 June 2021 A little over a mile to the north is the surviving motte of another castle, at Didley Court Farm.

References

External links

* Renn, D. F.

. ''Castles of Wales.'' *

. ''Castles of Herefordshire.'' Archaeological survey.
Population figures
(PDF) {{authority control Villages in Herefordshire Civil parishes in Herefordshire