Foy is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

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 ...

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. By road, it is north of

Ross-on-Wye Ross-on-Wye is a market town and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, near the border with Wales. It had a population estimated at 10,978 in 2021. It lies in the south-east of the county, on the River Wye and on the northern edge of the Fore ...

, south east of

Hereford Hereford ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of the ceremonial county of Herefordshire, England. It is on the banks of the River Wye and lies east of the border with Wales, north-west of Gloucester and south-west of Worcester. With ...

and south west 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 ...

. Foy, and the further Foy parish hamlet of Ingestone, lies in a loop of the

River Wye The River Wye (; ) is the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, fourth-longest river in the UK, stretching some from its source on Plynlimon in mid Wales to the Severn Estuary. The lower reaches of the river forms part of Wales-England bor ...

with the nearest vehicle bridges at Ross and Hoarwithy.

History

Early archeological finds. In 1791 a hoard of what was then described as "Bronze age celts" was found on rising ground between Hole-in-the-Wall and Old Gore. The word "

celt The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

s" is obsolete now but probably refers in this instance to axes made of bronze, thereby establishing occupation of Foy in the Bronze Age. In

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

times, Foy was part of

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

and records from 866 AD mention the establishment of a monastery at Foy (Lann Timoi).

Saint Mary's church

The present church is dedicated to

Saint Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

. The south porch dates from the early 14th-century and the tower is in the

Decorated style English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed a ...

The parish

The civil parish of Foy includes

Hole-in-the-Wall Hole-in-the-Wall is a remote pass in the Big Horn Mountains of Johnson County, Wyoming. In the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang and Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang met at the log cabin, which is now preserved ...

, and Old Gore and had a population in mid-2010 of 158.

Hole-in-the-Wall

Hole-in-the-Wall on the east bank of the

is accessible by a

footbridge A footbridge (also a pedestrian bridge, pedestrian overpass, or pedestrian overcrossing) is a bridge designed solely for pedestrians.''Oxford English Dictionary'' While the primary meaning for a bridge is a structure which links "two points at a ...

, built in 1919 by David Rowell & Co. It featured in the British television series '' Survivors'', in an episode titled "Gone Away" (1975).''"Terry Nation's Survivors"''
Wyenot News
, 19 April 2005, viewed on 2007-05-10

Long-distance footpaths

The Herefordshire Trail and Wye Valley Walk long-distance footpaths pass through Hole-in-the-Wall.

Notable people

Peter Mandelson Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, (born 21 October 1953) is a British politician, lobbyist and diplomat who has served as British Ambassador to the United States since February 2025. A member of the Labour Party, Mandelson serve ...

was introduced to the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

as ''Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham''. He owned a cottage in the village in the mid 1980s. * Lt. Col. Trevor L. Sharpe, Director of Music in the British Army, is buried in the churchyard. He was a judge on the BBC series ''The Best of Brass'' and conducted the theme music for the closing credits of ''

Dad's Army ''Dad's Army'' is a British television British sitcom, sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard (United Kingdom), Home Guard during the World War II, Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft (TV producer), David Crof ...

''.

Sources

* Ancient Dean and the Wye Valley by Bryan Walters

References

Hamlets in Herefordshire Civil parishes in Herefordshire {{Herefordshire-geo-stub