Welsh Journals

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VALLEY ON THE MARCH This is the title of a book of outstanding interest by Lord Rennell, published at 42s. by the Oxford University Press in 1958. It has the sub-title of "A History of a Group of Manors on the Herefordshire March of Wales." The" Valley is that of the Hindwell brook, which flows into the Lugg near Presteigne, and the book is largely a study of the origin and growth of the four manors which comprise that valley viz. Rodd, Nash, Little Brampton, and Knill, and of the families connected with them. Comparative details are also given for a number of neighbouring manors. The author explains in an introduction that the work of compilation, necessarily interupted by other work, has occupied a period of nearly 10 years. We may well believe this after examining the vast amount of information which he has gathered. Rarely can there have been a local history so well documented by evidence of every kind and date, much of which, be it added, is now revealed for the first time. The book, which has over 300 pages includes a large number of illustrations, besides two folding maps, various diagrams, genealogical tables, etc., and an admirable index. As a practical farmer himself, a geographer of repute (he has been President of the Royal Geographical Society), and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Lord Rennell writes with authority. In dealing with the manors, he explains how they came to be sited where they are, taking into account the influence of geology, climate, etc., and discusses how, as they expanded, the fields took the shapes which can still be traced, the nature of the early boundaries, and the changes in agricultural methods and activities over the centuries. He points out that the Hindwell Valley is particularly appropriate for such a study as an area untouched by industrialization, containing a type of settlement which, in extent and character, has continued virtually unchanged for a thousand years." He illustrates his studies on this subject with a remarkable series of photographs taken from the air of the manorial fields described. Lord Rennell devotes a chapter to an account of the 80 or so manors in the ancient Hundreds of Elsedune and Hezetree which were named in the Domesday Book of 1086, a subject on which he has done consider- able research, having identified practically all the manors mentioned. Incidentally he makes a few corrections and additions to his paper on the subject which appeared in the Transactions of 1944. In a further chapter particular attention is given to the manors of Stapleton and Presteigne, and their relationship to the Hindwell manors.