Kilpeck ( cy, Llanddewi Cil Peddeg) is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

in the county of

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...

, England. It is about southwest of

Hereford Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. With a populatio ...

, just south of the

A465 road The A465 is a trunk road that runs from Bromyard in Herefordshire, England to Llandarcy near Swansea in South Wales. The western half is known officially as the Neath to Abergavenny Trunk Road, but the section from Abergavenny to the Vale of Ne ...

and Welsh Marches Line to Abergavenny, and about from the border with Wales. On the 1st of April 2019 the parishes of Kenderchurch, St Devereux, Treville and

Wormbridge Wormbridge is a village and former civil parish in Herefordshire, England, about eight miles south-west of Hereford, on the A465 road at (). The neighbouring villages are Kilpeck, Didley, Howton, Treville, Ewyas Harold, Pontrilas and Cr ...

were merged with Kilpeck. The village is renowned for its small but outstanding Norman (Romanesque) church, SS Mary and David's, but also has the earthworks of a Norman

motte and bailey A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy t ...

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

that is no longer standing. The church is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ire ...

. There is a public house called the Kilpeck Inn, formerly known as the Red Lion Inn, situated in the centre of the village opposite the village green. Other amenities include a village hall and post office.

History

Until the 9th century, when it was taken over by

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era= Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ...

, the area around Kilpeck was within the Welsh kingdom of

Ergyng Ergyng (or Erging) was a Welsh kingdom of the sub-Roman and early medieval period, between the 5th and 7th centuries. It was later referred to by the English as ''Archenfield''. Location The kingdom lay mostly in what is now western Herefordshir ...

. After the Norman conquest, the area became known as

Archenfield Archenfield ( Old English: ''Ircingafeld'') is the historic English name for an area of southern and western Herefordshire in England. Since the Anglo-Saxons took over the region in the 8th century, it has stretched between the River Monnow and ...

and was governed as part of the

Welsh Marches The Welsh Marches ( cy, Y Mers) is an imprecisely defined area along the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods. The English term Welsh March (in Medieval Latin ...

. It became part of Herefordshire, and England, in the 16th century, although the use of Welsh in the area remained strong until the 19th century. The English name for the village derives from the Welsh name, ''Llanddewi Kil Peddeg'', with ''Llanddewi'' meaning "church of St. David" and ''Kil Peddeg'' probably meaning the "cell of Pedic", an otherwise unknown local early Christian

hermit A hermit, also known as an eremite ( adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a C ...

.James Bailey, ''The Parish Church of St Mary and St David at Kilpeck'', 2000 In the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086, Kilpeck (entered as Chipeete) was given by

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, ...

to William Fitz Norman de la Mare, son of Norman de la Mare. The clan de la Mare is one of the oldest in

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

and is descended from Ragnvald Eysteinsson, earl of Møre and Romsdal. According to the Domesday survey, Kilpeck had "3 ploughs, 2 serfs and 4 oxmen and there are 57 men with 19 ploughs." There are mentions of a church on the site possibly from as early as the 7th century. There are vestiges of an enclosure, 200 yds (183 metres) by 300 yds (274 m) in the field, defining an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

village.

Landmarks

The St Mary and St David's Church was built around 1140. It consists of a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. ...

and semicircular

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

. It is remarkable for its wealth (and fine preservation) of Norman stone carvings, both inside and out, all original both in form and position and incorporating many

corbels In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the st ...

with representations of human faces, hares, fish, fowl, stags etc. Eighty-five of 91 corbels survive, an extraordinarily high percentage. RemainsOfKilpeckCastle(PhilipHalling)Feb2006

RemainsOfKilpeckCastle(PhilipHalling)Feb2006

West of the church lies a ruined

motte-and-bailey A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to ...

and earthworks. The castle is thought to have been first built around 1090 as the administrative centre of

. A few walls of the 12th or 13th-century

keep A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in ...

still stand on top of the motte; these are not well preserved. A fireplace and chimney flues are visible and two sections of standing castle walls.KILPECK CASTLE
''historicengland.org.uk'', accessed 8 June 2021 A little over a mile to the north is the surviving motte of another castle, at Didley Court Farm.

References

External links

* Renn, D. F.

. ''Castles of Wales.'' *

. ''Castles of Herefordshire.'' Archaeological survey.
Population figures
(PDF) {{authority control Villages in Herefordshire Civil parishes in Herefordshire