Richards Castle, Herefordshire - Extract from National Gazetteer, 1868

"RICHARD'S CASTLE, a parish partly in the lower division of Munslow hundred county Salop, and partly in the hundred of Wolphy, county Hereford, 4 miles S.W. of Ludlow, its post town, and 3 from the Woofferton railway station. It comprises the townships of Woofferton, Overton. Batchcott, and Moor. The village, which is chiefly agricultural, was formerly a market town under the Mortimers by grant from King John, but both the market and fair have long been disused. It is situated on the old road from Ludlow to Leominster, near the Kington canal, which passes to the S.E. of the village.

Here are the ruins of the keep and walls of a castle erected prior to the Conquest by Richard Scrope. It was near this spot that Colonel Birch routed the Royalists in 1645. The tithes have been commuted for a rent-charge of £650, and there are 109½ acres of glebe. The living is a rectory* in the diocese of Hereford, value. £745, in the patronage of the Bishop of Worcester. The church, dedicated to St. Bartholomew, has a detached tower, the spire of which has been burnt down. There are some stained windows. A school is supported by the rector. In this parish is a spring, called Boney-well, from the circumstance that numerous small fish or frog bones are cast up by its waters in spring and autumn."

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]