Coddington is a hamlet 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in eastern

Herefordshire Herefordshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England, bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh ...

, England, about north of

Ledbury Ledbury is a market town and civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England, lying east of Hereford, and west of the Malvern Hills. It has a significant number of Tudor style timber-framed structures, in particular along Church Lane a ...

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

mapping The west side of the parish covers part of the

Malvern Hills The Malvern Hills are in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern. The highest summit af ...

, an official

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is one of 46 areas of countryside in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Since 2023, the areas in England an ...

. Coddington shares a parish council with neighbouring village of

Bosbury Bosbury is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, approximately north of Ledbury. The small River Leadon flows through the parish, passing along the west side of the village.Ordnance Survey mapping Bosbury shares a parish co ...

.Bosbury and Coddington
/ref>

Geography

The parish is small in area and population, with dispersed settlements and farms. The church and the surrounding hamlet of Coddington stand on a hillock rising to . The highest point in the parish is Oyster Hill at , which has an

triangulation station A triangulation station, also known as a trigonometrical point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity. The station is usually set up by a map ...

. Other places in the parish include Coddington Cross (at a crossroads on the main road through the parish, which does not pass through the hamlet of Coddington), Bush Farm, Pithouse Farm, Coddington Court, and Woofields Farm. The nearest railway stations are

and

Colwall Colwall is a Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Herefordshire, England, situated on the border with Worcestershire, nestling on the western side of the Malvern Hills at the heart of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, AONB. Areas of ...

, both about away by road. The

Herefordshire Trail The Herefordshire Trail is a long distance footpath in Herefordshire, England. Route and distance The trail, running for as a circular tour of Herefordshire, links the five market towns of Leominster, Bromyard, Ledbury, Ross-on-Wye and King ...

, a long-distance footpath, passes through the parish, calling at the

vineyard A vineyard ( , ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines. Many vineyards exist for winemaking; others for the production of raisins, table grapes, and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is kno ...

, the church and Oyster Hill.

History

Coddington was recorded as a manor 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

(1086), then spelled as ''Cotingtune''. The manor was then held by the

Bishop of Hereford The Bishop of Hereford is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury. Until 1534, the Diocese of Hereford was in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and two of its bishop ...

. The

map of 1887 shows a school and a post office in the hamlet. It also shows two

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

s: the ''Plough Inn'' and the ''Golden Cross Inn'', on the lane between Coddington Court and Coddington Cross. All these amenities have since closed. Coddington was home to Clyde Petroleum, established in the 1970s by a group of ex-

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company, headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...

employees. The parish has many listed buildings, including several

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

half-timbered dwellings, of which Bush Farm is listed Grade II*.

Religion

The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

parish church of All Saints is a Grade II* listed building built largely in the 12th and 13th centuries. It features a

broach spire A broach spire is a type of spire (tall pyramidal structure), which usually sits atop a tower or turret of a church. It starts on a square base and is carried up to a tapering octagonal spire by means of triangular faces. File:Leicester Cathedral ...

. Church services are shared with nearby

. The churchyard includes a Grade II* listed cross, whose base dates from the 14th century. There is a

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

retreat and study centre at Coddington Court.

Demographics

The 2001 census gave Coddington a population of 108, and the two parishes of

and Coddington combined a population of 888. This fell by 8.5 per cent to 813 at the 2011 census, when the estimated population for Coddington was 99.

Politics

Coddington (with two seats) shares a parish council with a larger neighbour, Bosbury (eleven seats). They and the parishes of

and Mathon form the

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 ...

of Hope End, which elects one member to

Herefordshire Council Herefordshire Council is the local authority for the county of Herefordshire in England. It is a unitary authority, combining the powers of a district and county council. History Herefordshire was one of the historic counties of England. Elec ...

. Coddington lies in the North Herefordshire parliamentary constituency.

Notable people

* Lionel George Curtis (1872–1955), a prominent advocate of

one-world government World government is the concept of a single political authority governing all of Earth and humanity. It is conceived in a variety of forms, from tyrannical to democratic, which reflects its wide array of proponents and detractors. There has n ...

, was born in Coddington.Tom Cargill: "How to build a better world", ''History Today'' Vol. 63, No. 2, February 2013. *

Sangharakshita Dennis Philip Edward Lingwood (26 August 192530 October 2018), known more commonly as Sangharakshita, was a British spiritual teacher and writer. In 1967, he founded the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO), which was renamed the Trirat ...

(London-born Dennis Lingwood, 1925–2018), writer, commentator and founder of the

Triratna Buddhist Community The Triratna Buddhist Community, formerly the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO), is an international fellowship of Buddhists. It was founded in the UK in 1967 by Sangharakshita (born Dennis Philip Edward Lingwood) and describes itse ...

, lived in Coddington.

References

External links

*{{Commons category-inline, Coddington, Herefordshire
Bosbury and Coddington Parish Council
Hamlets in Herefordshire Civil parishes in Herefordshire