HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR DATABASE

 

The Highlights page is a changing showcase for individual documents or items on the website that members of our Study Group pick from time to time as having particular merit, interest or importance. Our choices of highlights are informed by user feedback we receive through the contact page of the website as well as by our own detailed knowledge of the site contents.

 Users may already be familiar with the many ways of finding documents and other items of interest on the History of Ewyas Lacy website.  Personal names, places and topics can be extracted simply by using the ‘Search’ box at the top of each page. You can also find a great many aids for searches or browsing in each of the main groupings on the home page, not forgetting ‘Quick Links’ for some of the major subject areas.

 This Highlights page adds to these resources by pointing directly to a few specific landmark items that in our judgement are significant to the history of Ewyas Lacy and the surrounding area, and may therefore also suggest further fruitful avenues for study. The selections are changed periodically to open new windows into our website and to point to recent additions.

 

 

 

 

RECORDS

 

We have been fortunate to obtain access to several private collections of records which provide a unique perspective on particular aspects of local life. Recent acquisitions include material from the Head Gamekeeper of the Michaelchurch Court Estate , the Rector of Bacton , and a World War 2 Prisoner of War who took up residence in the Golden Valley, as well as a collection from America about Urishay Castle .

We continue to expand our Collection of sale particulars relating to properties of historical interest throughout the Ewyas Lacy parishes. These provide important insights into how they have evolved and developed over time.

 Additions to our library of transcriptions include a description of a perambulation of the manor of Craswall in 1847 and an extract from a paper by members of the Woolhope Club listing field names in Michaelchurch Escley from the tithe map.

 

 

RESEARCH

 

 New research into the Upper Escley Valley provides a detailed analysis of the ownership and evolution of local properties there from Elizabethan times, including a detailed study of Pikes Farm . This work links for the first time manorial, tax, rental survey, tithe and other contemporary records into a coherent account of the evolution of modern-day properties. Also a first, the historical records have been supplemented by Dendrochronology studies of Pikes Farm and the Kings Arms to provide accurate scientific dating of those buildings. Working notes for a similar study of properties in the Middle and Lower Escley Valley are also available.

 Elsewhere, a major study of derelict buildings in the Black Mountains provides important insights into our area, a guest paper on Llancillo Forge has cast fresh light on the hidden iron-making history of Ewyas Lacy and the Golden Valley, and new research into the Lordship of Ewyas Lacy comes up with some unexpected conclusions.

 

 

DIGITAL ARCHIVE

New material on an old favourite, the Golden Valley Railway, has recently emerged, with a video clip from the 1950s and more photographs including the 1881 opening ceremony at Dorstone.

 Our wider database of document photographs continues to expand, with the addition of a listing of field names by parish taken from the tithe maps, tithe apportionment records , Manorial Court Rolls for Llanthony and Cwmyoy , additional survey documents showing rentals for the manors of Ewyas Harold and Ewyas Lacy , a register of Lord Abergavenny’s Ewyas Lacy leases , and Land Tax listings for Fwthog and Llancillo .

 On a lighter note, a rare collection of postcards from the early 1900s and photographs of local artisans and craftsmen at work illustrate some local scenes from the more recent past, while pictures of an Elizabethan oak-panelled drawing room prove yet again that history is full of surprises.

 


Top - Back

Ref: rs_highlights