Hereford was one of the first towns
founded in England after the end of
Roman Rule. Early Hereford was a
frontier town on the border between
kingdoms inhabited by the ancestors of
the Welsh and of the English before
there were such countries as 'Wales' and
'England'. The English never totally
conquered what is now modern
Herefordshire as the many Welsh
place-names in the county attest - parts
of Herefordshire were never in
'Anglo-Saxon' England.
Hereford expanded under the Norman and
French kings who ruled England from
1066. French immigrants brought over by
the new nobility formed part of the
local community, slowly losing their
separate identity. With a massive stone
castle and a thriving market place, the
town became one of the most important in
the country.
The city’s isolation contributed
largely to its economic stagnation in
the post-medieval period and many
attempts were made to improve Hereford’s
communications with the outside world. A
horse towing path on the banks of the
navigable River Wye was opened in 1810
and a horse-drawn railway opened to the
canal wharf at Abergavenny in 1829. One
of the last canals to be built in
Britain reached Hereford in 1845.
In
December 1853 the City of Hereford
celebrated the opening of its first
railway connection. Regular railway
services to South Wales began in January
1854 and lines to Gloucester, Worcester
and Brecon were opened in the following
ten years.
The photographs were provided by
Robert Williams and
Archenfield Archaeology.
Railway photographs are by Peter
Clinton.
The aerial views of medieval Hereford
were developed by Enok Sweetland from a
model of the city in the Old House
Museum in Hereford by permission of
Herefordshire Museum Services. The
prints are from the collections in
Hereford Library and are reproduced by
permission of Herefordshire Library
Services |
Powered by
Irie Computers 
