Bromyard

Bromyard
View of Bromyard from Bromyard Downs
Population	4,700
OS grid reference	SO654548
Unitary authority	Herefordshire
Ceremonial county	Herefordshire
Region	West Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	BROMYARD
Postcode district	HR7
Dialling code	01885
Police	West Mercia
Fire	Hereford and Worcester
Ambulance	West Midlands
UK Parliament	North Herefordshire

Bromyard is a town in northeast Herefordshire, England with a population in 2010 of approximately 4,500. It lies near to the county border with Worcestershire on the A44 between Leominster and Worcester. Bromyard has a number of traditional half-timbered buildings, including some of the pubs, and the parish church dates back to Norman times. Bromyard was founded about 1100 by the bishops of Hereford who had a manor and minster there in Anglo-Saxon times. It was for many years a market town and is still a centre for growing hops apples and pears, and soft fruit.

During World War I, Bromyard was the site of an internment camp, where the Irish nationalist Terence MacSwiney, future Lord Mayor of Cork and hunger striker, was both interned and married. In World War Two, Westminster School was temporarily relocated to Buckenhill, on the outskirts of the town.

The town is twinned with Athis-de-l'Orne, Normandy.

Culture

The Bromyard & District Choral Society was founded in 1957 and performs a wide variety of music, sacred and secular, from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.

The Bromyard & District Local History Society was founded in 1966 and is extremely active, with a centre open three days a week which contains a large archive and library and an exhibition room.

Bromyard hosts a three-day folk festival each year in September, which particularly concentrates on English traditional music. It is one of the largest events of its kind in the country.

In 2011 Bromyard hosted its first jazz festival from August 19 to the 21st. The festival took place at the Falcon Hotel, and was organised by 'Sir' Alan Buckley. [1].

Bromyard Gala, a large country show and traction engine and vintage rally, is held on its showground just off Hereford Road on the first weekend of July.

Bromyard is the home of Nozstock Festival of Performing Arts which attracts nearly 3,000 visitors at the end of July every year. This three-day event showcases 30 bands from around the country across three stages, alongside two dance arenas, a cinema, a theatre and comedy stage, circus, and a vintage tractor arena.

At Christmas time, volunteers (also known as the Bromyard Light Brigade) organize an extensive display of Christmas lightswhich are put up at October and switched on the last Saturday of November, which runs for the five weeks up to Christmas until after the New Year. The group established links with Blackpool Illuminations over 2010, and Blackpool's director Richard Ryan performed the switching-on ceremony in the same year and the volunteers were awarded The Queen's Award for Voluntary Services also in the same year.

The Conquest Theatre offers a programme of plays, variety, musicals, operettas, ballet, pantomime and concerts, in a purpose-built centre constructed in 1991.

Bromyard Wind Band, a band that specializes in wind instruments,[2] rehearses in the nearby village of Bredenbury on Friday evenings, except on the first Friday of every month, the band rehearses at the Falcon Hotel in the town.

Bromyard.info [3] is the community website for Bromyard and District. Run as a Community Interest Company by volunteers, it is an 'online daily news site', has a full events calendar, features places of interest, accommodation, pubs, restaurants and shopping directory, together with a full local directory.

Regular acoustic music sessions also feature in Bromyard's pubs, mostly on Sunday and Tuesday evenings at the Rose & Lion and Falcon Hotel respectively, throughout the year. A calendar of regular and upcoming events is maintained at the Bromyard Sessions website [4].

Rowden Paddocks Farm north of Bromyard is the site for the annual Nozstock music and comedy festival.

History: Bromyard is recorded in the Domesday Book as Bromberde, Bromyard was bigger than Hereford with 59 families recorded.

Transport

The Worcester Bromyard and Leominster Railway, now dismantled, ran from Worcester to Leominster, and was a common destination for 'hop-pickers' specials' from the Black Country.The railway was dismantled in 1962, but it was closed in 1958.

Landmarks

The half-timbered Falcon Pub.

St Peter's Church is a large building with parts dating back to Norman times, including an effigy of St. Peter, with two keys, over the main (reset) Norman south doorway. Most of the exterior is early 14th century.

It is believed that an Anglo-Saxon church existed before the present St Peter's Church.

The town centre is bypassed by the main road, A44 that stretches from Rhayader in Wales to Oxford. Bromyard is notable for its many old and historically interesting buildings, especially in High Street, Broad Street, Market Square, Sherford Street and Rowberry Street, including a number of half-timbered pubs and dwelling houses.

Lower Brockhampton, a moated farmhouse on an extensive National Trust property, lies a short distance to the east, beyond Bromyard Downs. These are an area of common land lying to the northeast which offers many walks, with extensive views over the town, the Malvern Hills, the Clee Hills, and the Welsh borders, with the Black Mountains and other hills beyond.

The lane to Avenbury

External links

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