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Weston under Penyard
Weston under Penyard
	Weston under Penyard Location within Herefordshire
Population	1,007 (2011 Census)
Unitary authority	Herefordshire;
Shire county	Herefordshire;
Region	West Midlands;
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Ross-on-Wye
Postcode district	HR9
Police	West Mercia
Fire	Hereford and Worcester
Ambulance	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Hereford and South Herefordshire;
	List of places UK England Herefordshire 51°54′25″N 2°32′16″W / 51.90701°N 2.53779°W

Weston under Penyard is a small village in Herefordshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 Census was 1,007.^[1]

It lies on the A40 road two miles east of Ross-on-Wye. The Penyard is a prominent hill.

History

The parish church of St Lawrence has a tall 14th-century west tower which had a spire until it was damaged by lightning in 1750.^[2]

A Wesleyan chapel was constructed at Buryhill during the early 19th century but was disused by 1964.^[3] The building was subsequently converted for use as private residence.^[4]

Slightly to the east under farmland lies the former Roman settlement of Ariconium, which gave its name to the historical Welsh Kingdom spanning areas of what is now known as Herefordshire Ergyng and Archenfield. The name Ariconium is Romano-British and may conceivably have an equivalent in or near the Roman province of Galatia.

Herefordshire escaped most of the battles with the Vikings but in 914 the Danes made additional visits to the area and ravaged Archenfield, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (AD 915, Worcester Manuscript, p. 99). The jarls leading the raids, Ohtor and Hroald, captured Bishop Cameleac or Cyfeiliog, then the Bishop of Llandaff; he was later ransomed. The jarls were killed in a subsequent battle at "Kill Dane Field" in Weston-under-Penyard and the raiders were subdued.^[5]

Two miles south west are the fragmentary remains of Penyard Castle, a fourteenth-century castle on the site of which was built a seventeenth-century house. Penyard House is a Georgian building that used to operate as a hotel.

Notable people

Richard Amerike (c. 1445–1503), a Bristol merchant, was born in the village, and some sources suggest gave his name to America.^[6] Marc Bolan, the singer and guitarist, owned the Old Rectory in the 1970s.^[7] Richard Hammond, the former Top Gear presenter, has a home, Bollitree Castle, in the village.^[8] It comprises a house built circa 1700 incorporating the remains of an earlier building, to which castellated walls, turrets and moat were added in the late eighteenth century.