Ullingswick is a small village in

Herefordshire Herefordshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England, bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh ...

, England located about south west of

Bromyard Bromyard is a town in the parish of Bromyard and Winslow, in Herefordshire, England, in the valley of the River Frome, Herefordshire, River Frome. It is near the county border with Worcestershire on the A44 road, A44 between Leominster and Worc ...

, north east of

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

and 10 miles south east of

Leominster Leominster ( ) is a market town in Herefordshire, England; it is located at the confluence of the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater. The town is north of Hereford and south of Ludlow in Shropshire. With a population of almos ...

. The population of the village at the 2011 census was 259.

Archaeology

According to local archeological studies, there is possible evidence of earthworks resulting from an early timber castle, to the north of the former village hall (which no longer exists and has been built over) (). This was recorded as "Dunder Camp" on the 1904

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

map. Further details can be found in ''Archaeological Research Section Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol.63 p. 56''.

History

It is mentioned 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as ''Ullingwic''. The name may derive from "Ulla ingas wic", where Ulla was the name of an Anglo-Saxon chief, ''ingas'' is Anglo-Saxon for "followers of", and ''wic'', ''wick'' or ''wich'' is an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

word meaning abode or dwelling place, borrowed from the Latin ''

vicus In Ancient Rome, the Latin term (plural ) designated a village within a rural area () or the neighbourhood of a larger settlement. During the Republican era, the four of the city of Rome were subdivided into . In the 1st century BC, Augustus ...

'' meaning village. Thus meaning "the dwelling of the followers of Ulla". Other records of the name include * 1086 Ullingwic, Dom. * 1127 Olingewiche, A.C. * 1186 Ullyngwyk, Glos. Cart. * 1192 Ullingewike, Glos. Cart. * no date Wylyngwyche, Willingswyke, Glos. Cart. * 1276 Ullingwike, Ep. Reg. * 1291 Ullingwyke, Tax. Eccles. * 1341 Ullongewyk, Non. Inq. With the same source citing the meaning of the name as "Wic of the sons of Willa". The village church, St Luke's, has a Norman nave, 13th century chancel, and Victorian porch and bell tower. It is built in a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

style, but was extensively restored in 1863 at a cost of £800 and reroofed in 1912. A

lych gate A lychgate (from Old English ''līc'', corpse) or resurrection gate is a covered gateway found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style churchyard. Examples also exist outside the British Isles in places such as Newfoundland, the ...

was erected in 1921 at the west entrance to the churchyard, as a War Memorial. The font stem dates from the 13th Century, and font bowl from the 15th Century. Of note is a 16th Century memorial painting on the south wall, to John Hill (d.1590), owner of the nearby Lower Court. The inscription reads, ""Here lyeth the body of John Hill gentleman heire to John Hill gent of the Nether courts who marryed the eldest daughter one of the co-heires of Hugh Brooke esquyer of Lounge Ashton (Long Ashton) in ye county of Somerset: lyneally descendinge from the house of ye Lord Cobham & had by her three sonns & two daughters: these armes came by hir and hee departed this lyffe the thirde daye of February in the XXXXlll yere of the raigne of oure soveraigne lady Quene Elizabeth Anno Domi 1590 upon whom the Lorde hathe mercy". The monument painted on stone shows John lying on top of a tomb chest between kneeling figures labelled (from left to right): "Francis thir yovnger", "John thir eldest sonne", "Elisabethe his wife" and "Jane thir daughter". On the floor are two shrouded infants labelled John and Jane. Elizabeth was one of four co-heiress daughters of Hugh Brooke (d.1588), grand daughter of Thomas Brooke (d.1537) and Joan (d.1538) daughter of Sir John Speke of Whitelackington In 1862, the village was the scene of the rape and murder of 16-year old Mary Corbett, on an errand to buy candles on a stormy October evening. The murderer, William Hope, a labourer and known criminal from the village was convicted and hanged in Hereford, on 15 April 1863, the first hanging there for thirty years. Other notable crimes in Ullingswick from the Victorian era included an offence under the Turnpike Act in 1854, a bolting horse in 1867, an attempted suicide in 1899 and the death of a drunkard in 1901.

Today

The village economy is almost exclusively agricultural. The village school and village post office no longer exist. The public house in the village was the Three Crowns Inn. now closed. The local primary school is at Burley Gate and the local secondary school is the Queen Elizabeth High School in

In media

Ullingswick is the setting of two books by Ross Heaven, ''The Sin Eater's Last Confessions'' and ''Walking With The Sin Eater: A Celtic Pilgrimage On The Dragon Path''.

References

External links

Map of Ullingswick
{{authority control Villages in Herefordshire