Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire & Radnorshire Family History Guide

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Brampton Bryan is an Ancient Parish partly in Radnorshire.

Alternative names: Brampton Brian

Other places in the parish include: the townships of Boresford and Pedwardine, and the lordship of Stanage

Parish church:

Parish registers begin: 1598

Nonconformists include: Primitive Methodist

Parishes adjacent to Brampton Bryan

Historical Descriptions

Brampton Bryan

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

BRAMPTON-BRYAN, a village and a township in the district of Knighton and county of Hereford; and a parish partly also in the county of Radnor. The village stands on the river Teme, 3 miles ESE of Bucknell r. station, and 10 W by S of Ludlow; and has a post office, of the name of Brampton-Bryan, Herefordshire, and a fair on 21 and 22 June. It dates from remote times; and had a castle built by the Norman Bryan de Brampton, held long by the Harleys, and besieged and destroyed by the royalists in the civil war.-The township includes the village. Pop., 158. Houses, 29. The parish contains also the townships of Boresford and Pedwardine, and the lordship of Stanage. Acres, 5,314. Real property, with Buckton and Coxall, £6,148. Pop., 430. Houses, 83. The property is divided among a few. Brampton Park is the seat of the Earl of Oxford. Coxwell Knoll has vestiges of a camp which was occupied by Caractacus prior to his defeat by O. Scapula. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Hereford. Value, £300. Patron, Lady Langdale. The church was injured in the civil war, and had long a ruined tower, but was beautified in 1859 by the erection of a neat cupola; and it contains the monuments of Lord Treasurer Harley, the founder of the Harleian Library. Charities, £19.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].

Leonard’s Gazetteer of England and Wales 1850

Brampton-Bryan, 5¾ mile N.E. Presteign. P. 419

Source: Leonard’s Gazetteer of England and Wales; Second Edition; C. W. Leonard, London; 1850.

Boresford and Pedwardine

The Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales 1851

Boresford and Pedwardine, a township in the parish of Brampton-Bryan, hund. of Wigmore, county of Hereford; 4 miles east by south of Knighton. Pop., in 1801, 94; in 1831, 109. Houses 18. Acres, including the township of Brampton-Brian, 3,190.

Source: The Parliamentary Gazetteer of England and Wales; A Fullarton & Co. Glasgow; 1851.

Leonard’s Gazetteer of England and Wales 1850

Boresford, in Brampton-Bryan parish. P. 102

Source: Leonard’s Gazetteer of England and Wales; Second Edition; C. W. Leonard, London; 1850.

Church

In Brampton Brian Church is entombed the famous Lord High Treasurer, Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford, founder of the Harleian Library in the British Museum, who died in 1724, and of whom Pope wrote:

A soul supreme in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all anger, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death

Source: The Family Topographer; Samuel Tymms; 1834.

Bankrupts

Below is a list of people that were declared bankrupt between 1820 and 1843 extracted from The Bankrupt Directory; George Elwick; London; Simpkin, Marshall and Co.; 1843.

Farmer John, Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire, dealer in cattle, April 4, 1826.

Directories

Brampton Brian Cassey Directory of Herefordshire 1858

Brampton-Brian is a parish, ten miles west from Ludlow, (its post town), 6 east from Knighton (its poor law union), 14 from Leominster (its polling town), 4 from Wigmore (where petty sessions are held), and 24 north-west from Hereford (the county town), in Wigmore Hundred, Knighton Union, Salop archdeaconry, and Hereford diocese; it is situated on the turnpike road from Ludlow to Knighton, and on the river Teme.  The church of St. Barnabas is a plain fabric, re-built after the destruction of Brampton Brian Castle and town, in the time of the civil wars.

There are several ancient monuments to the Harley family.  The living is a rectory, worth £350 yearly with residence and 16 acres of glebe land, in the gift of the Earl of Oxford; the Rev. David Rodney Murray, M.A., is the rector.  There is a national school for boys and girls, with a small endowment and a residence for the master and mistress.  The ruins of Brampton Brian Castle are situated close to the church, and immediately across the river is a Roman camp on the top of Coxall Knoll, where Caractacus is supposed by some to have made his last stand.  This was an ancient lordship of the family of Brian de Brampton, who resided here in the reign of Henry I.  His family become extinct in the reign of Edward I, when Margaret, a co-heiress, conveyed the estate in marriage to Robert de Harley.  The castle, which had been erected at an early period, become the chief seat of the Harleys, until the time of the civil wards in the reign of Charles I, when that family embarking in the republican cause, it was twice besieged by the royal forces.  The Hall is a handsome brick mansion with stone facings, the residence and seat of the Countess of Oxford and Mortimer.  A fair is held yearly for sheep on the 21st June, and for horses and cattle on the 22nd June.  The population, in 1851, was 426, and the acreage is about 2,500.  Lady Langdale, of Eywood, near Kington, is lady of the manor; and Lady Langdale, and the Countess of Oxford and Mortimer, are chief landowners.  The soil is a rich loam, the subsoil gravel.

Upper and Lower Penwardine and Boresford are townships in the parish of Brampton Brian.

Stanage Lordship, which is situate in Radnorshire, but in Brampton Brian parish, belongs to Mrs. H. Rogers, and is distant 2 miles from the parish church.

Letters arrive from Ludlow at half-past 8 a.m., and are despatched at 6 p.m.  The nearest money order office is at Knighton.

National School, Mr. Dunkerton, master; Miss Dunkerton, mistress

Cooke John E., farmer

Edwards John, Esq., J.P.

Edwards James, shoemaker and shopkeeper

Edwards Thomas, farmer

Francis Benjamin, wheelwright

Hughes Timothy, farmer

Ireland Mary, Oxford Arms Inn

Murray Rev. D. R., M.A., & J.P., Rectory

Oxford and Mortimer Countess of, the Hall

Parr Richard, farmer, Upper Penwardine

Parr William, farmer, Lower Penwardine

Source: Edward Cassey & Co.: History, Topography, and Directory of Herefordshire. Printed by William Bailey, 107, Fishergate 1858.

Administration

  • County: Herefordshire
  • Civil Registration District: Knighton
  • Probate Court: Court of the Bishop of Hereford (Episcopal Consistory)
  • Diocese: Hereford
  • Rural Deanery: Clun
  • Poor Law Union: Knighton
  • Hundred: Wigmore
  • Province: Canterbury