Agricultural History Review, Volume 69 Part 2 (2021), p. 310

This is the third parish history published by the Trust for the Victoria County History of Herefordshire, the others being Eastnor in 2013 and Bosbury in 2016: as part of the VCH Shorts series, they provide in-depth parish histories. The plan for the future is that they will eventually form part of a VCH red volume on Ledbury and the surrounding parishes of the Malvern Hills: thus, the structure of this book is unsurprising, as it follows a well-rehearsed format. The book opens by examining the parish boundaries, landscape, settlement patterns over time and the built environment. This is followed by an examination of the landownership of the parish in terms of manors and other estates before the main thrust of the volume which presents the economic, social and religious history of Colwall before finally examining the changing structure of local government which managed the parish affairs over time. There is also a chapter on the British Camp, a large earthwork enclosure, which surrounds the Herefordshire Beacon, the highest point on the Malvern Hills within the county of Hereford: the existence of the Norman ring-work bank at this site places it in a rare class of archaeological features at a national level, thereby justifying the separate chapter.

Written in the usual VCH descriptive style, the reader is presented with a chronological stream of facts within each chapter. Colwall was a largely agricultural community until the mid-nineteenth century, and thus this subject appears at the beginning of the chapter on economic history. The section on agriculture in the medieval and early modern period is split into arable, park and chase, meadow and pasture, and woodland. A three-course rotation was being followed in the parish at this time: wheat, Lent grain (grain sown during Lent), and fallow. The description of crops and livestock has been enhanced by the availability of a large number of wills and inventories in this period: dairying was an important activity producing both cheese and butter, and hop growing was already being practised from at least the sixteenth century. Evidence of orchards along with the production of cider and perry is also presented, as well as the growing of flax and hemp.

From 1800 onwards, a series of new farm buildings were erected and existing ones improved, resulting in three ‘model farms’ in the parish: these were Barton Farm, Winnings Farm, and Park Farm. Whilst the growing of hops declined after this date, they continued to be grown in the parish of Colwall: as for the orchards, the Assistant Tithe Commissioner was unable to calculate the total acreage of orchards in 1839, simply recording ‘numerous small orchards’.

A wide range of crafts were practised including weaving, tanning, gloving, and tailoring. With the coming of the railway in 1860, employment patterns changed as people were employed directly on the railway, but also the numbers in the building trades increased, reflecting the growth of the village at this time. Being adjacent to the Malvern Hills, there was access to the water that came from the springs, with a brewery and a mineral water factory (Schweppes) established in 1879 and 1892 respectively. Quarrying was in operation from at least the beginning of the seventeenth century, although this reduced significantly following the Malvern Hills Act of 1884 and the efforts of the conservators appointed under this act. In 1883, a vinegar brewery was moved from nearby Ledbury to the village and at its peak, it was producing 2000 gallons of prize-winning vinegar each day.

The editors have suggested that there were substantial numbers of sheep in the parish in the early nineteenth century, thereby providing large quantities of manure to enable high arable yields (p. 57). However, the only evidence presented is the number of sheep at individual farms at specific dates, and these were not significant numbers given that the parish extended to around 3800 acres at the time (the average of the four numbers quoted being just over 200 sheep), and further there is no indication of actual yields, provided for comparison purposes. The book describes the planting of new orchards by 1885 and reference is made to ‘the avenues of lime trees which are characteristic of the village were also planted to attract bees to the orchards’ (p. 60): they would indeed attract the bees but lime trees flower in late June/early July, and therefore would have been of no use to the orchard growers whose top-fruit trees blossom in the early spring.

A comprehensive range of manuscript sources has been used in the preparation of this volume, accessed at a number of archive offices, along with printed primary and secondary sources. A full list of abbreviations is provided, along with a useful index and a select glossary, although it would have been helpful if definitions of ‘forlet land’ (p. 49 and elsewhere) and ‘fee-buck’ and ‘fee-doe’ (p. 51) had been included.

The book is a high-quality production, marred only by two errors this reader found: firstly, in Table 1 (p. 12) the population figures for Colwall in 1981 and 1991 are given as 2088 and 2323 respectively, whereas on the opposite page the population for the same two years is quoted as 2074 and 2143. Secondly, the section on agriculture commences with the sizes of medieval holdings, being based around the concept of the yardland defined as 60 acres (p. 45): however, the glossary defines a yardland as between 15 and 40 acres, depending on local custom (p. 125) and there is no explanation as to why yardlands were larger in Colwall than elsewhere. Notwithstanding, this is a very readable account of an agricultural parish in the south-west Midlands.