In 1783 George III had been on the throne for 20 years. There had already been one change in Prime Minister and before the end of the year there would be another – William Pitt the Younger – three Prime Ministers in one year. The American War was by now over and In February Britain acknowledged the independence of the USA. Capability Brown died aged 67. In June the eruption of Laki, an Icelandic volcano filled the air in the UK with a sulphur haze, caused the deaths of maybe 10,000 people across England. Then in August a great fireball meteor passed through the skies, entering the Earth’s atmosphere over the North Sea before passing over the east coast and the southern counties of England before finally breaking up over south-western France. In October the last public execution in England took place at Tyburn, London. Subsequently executions instead took place in Newgate Prison.
Hereford, like Coventry and other cities, had been declared by Richard I to have been a City since “time immemorial” – generally accepted as being before 1189 when society changed from a largely “oral” culture to one where writings became paramount. But Hereford is not one of the Country’s oldest settlements. The Saxon name means “Army Ford” and its existence from the 8th Century is probably because it lies in a bend of the River Wye near its junction with the Lugg, where there were two crossing points providing the gateway into and out of Wales. The City lies on a gravel terrace ideal for timber houses yet with no shortage of wells for water supply. It is a site that is easily defendable yet accessible on a road system from North, South, East or West. Hereford was the Saxon Capital of West Mercia by the beginning of the 8th Century.
The Welsh won the Battle of Hereford of 760 and freed themselves from the rule of the Anglo-Saxons. Between 928 and 935 it was to Hereford that Athelstan summoned the Welsh Princes to sue for peace. In 1056 the Kings of Wales with their Viking allies put the city to the torch in their dispute with Edward the Confessor destroying the Castle in the process, although it was later rebuilt. In 1154 the Castle became the Royal stronghold of Henry II and became the base for Richard II and Henry IV in much of their action against the Welsh.
The last Welsh King Owain Glyn Dwr was finally defeated in the early 1400s and the military importance of the town declined settling to become a successful market town. Successive Kings developed Hereford Castle to become almost as grand as that of Windsor. After the Civil War (1642-1645) when the City changed hands a number of times the Castle went into decline and over the next 100 years was gradually dismantled with much of the stone being used in buildings across the city. The Castle site was redeveloped into what today is Castle Green, with the remains of the moat being Castle Pool Lake. The Hereford Mappa Mundi was successfully hidden and kept safe during the Civil War and is now housed in a new library next to Hereford Cathedral.
But Came They All to Birmingham 