The Rivers of Great Britain, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial: Rivers of the South and West Coasts

by Various

ROSS CHURCH (p. [136]).

Hereford was a town of importance even at the dawn of English history. Outside its walls stood the palace of Offa, the greatest of all the Mercian princes; and during the reign of the Mercian kings it was the principal town of Mercia. Ethelfleda, sister of Edward the Elder, governed the place with great skill, and she it was who constructed the castle that guarded the town, and constructed it so well that it proved to be one of the strongest in all England. Leland has this to say of the keep: “High, and very strong, having in the outer wall ten semicircular towers, and one great tower within”; and adds that “it hath been one of the largest, fayrest, and strongest castles in England.”

Here, again, the wily Llewelyn comes upon the scene, for he led his men from the fastness of the Upper Wye, pillaged and burnt the place, murdered the bishop and his assistants, set the cathedral ablaze, and left what had been a fair town a mass of smouldering ruins.

A visitor to this ancient city will find it hard to realise that anything but peace and goodwill ever reigned in all the district, for in these days of bustle and worry it would be difficult to discover in all Great Britain a more placid, steady-going, self-satisfied city than Hereford. Well laid out, clean, at least reasonably well-to-do—although it does not lay claim to be a place of great industry, relying more upon the church and the market than upon the manufactory—there seems to be a perpetual air of Sunday hovering over the town. The very visitors—and they are many—move soberly about the streets, and appear to have become imbued with the spirit of the place. No one can be many minutes in Hereford without detecting that not only the people but the very buildings take their key from the grand cathedral that, calmly gazing into the face of Time, has seen of men and houses generations come and generations go.

Hereford as an ecclesiastical centre is one of the most ancient in Great Britain, but until the commission of Offa’s grievous crime it must have been comparatively unimportant, with a small wooden structure for a church. Offa’s perfidy changed all that. It will be remembered that the ruthless prince treacherously induced Ethelbert, King of the East Angles, to visit his Court, where he had him foully murdered, and buried in the church. Offa, of course, then seized Ethelbert’s crown. Having secured this, and being safely installed in the place of his murdered guest, he found time to repent; and that his repentance might seem the more real, he endowed with great riches the church in which lay the body of his victim, and soon the wooden building gave place to a stone edifice. No doubt the king’s offerings greatly assisted in founding Hereford on a solid ecclesiastical basis, but the effect of his gifts was evanescent, compared with the value of his victim’s bones, as an attraction to the devout. Ethelbert’s remains had not long been buried in the cathedral ere they began to work miracles, and soon great numbers of people from near and from afar sought the good saint’s assistance, so that great riches flowed to the church and town; and from that day to this Hereford has continued to prosper.

For two hundred years the church built over the bones of Ethelbert stood, before the Welsh, as has been told, laid the place in ruins. In 1079 Bishop Robert of Lorraine began to rebuild, and the work was not completed until early in the sixteenth century. This is the building—many times restored—that stands to the present day. More than a hundred years ago (in 1786) the western tower collapsed, bringing down with it most of the west front, and this, as well as many other parts of the cathedral, was rebuilt.

Inside the cathedral are many interesting monuments of men who played large parts in the history of England, and, besides these, the cathedral has a unique treasure in the far-famed “Mappa Mundi,” a production of one De Haldingham, who lived in the fourteenth century. This map, if not the oldest, is at least one of the very oldest in the world. Havergal says of it: “The world is here represented as round, surrounded by the ocean. At the top of the map is represented Paradise, with its rivers and trees; also the eating of the forbidden fruit and the expulsion of our first parents. Above is a remarkable representation of the Day of Judgment, with the Virgin Mary interceding for the faithful, who are seen rising from their graves, and being led within the walls of Heaven. The map is chiefly filled with ideas taken from Herodotus, Solinus, Isidore, Pliny, and other ancient historians. There are numerous figures of towns, animals, birds, and fish, with grotesque customs such as the mediæval geographers believed to exist in different parts of the world. The four great cities are very prominent—Jerusalem as the centre of the world; Babylon, with its famous tower; Rome, the capital of the world ... and Troy.... In Great Britain most of the cathedrals are mentioned, but of Ireland the author seems to have known very little.” Truly a wonderful record of the geographical knowledge of the Middle Ages!

Hereford was the birthplace of Nell Gwynne, orange-seller, actress, and Court favourite—short, red of hair or nearly so, and with feet so small as to cause general amusement. The street in which she was born is now called Gwynne Lane, and the place is still pointed out to tourists who are interested in the story of the famous beauty. David Garrick also was born in the city.