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St John the Baptist, Byford, Herefordshire

Location
(52°4′52″N, 2°52′52″W)
Byford
SO 397 429
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Herefordshire
now Herefordshire
medieval Hereford
now Hereford
  • Ron Baxter
05 May 2005

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Description

Byford is a village on the River Wye, 7 miles W of Hereford. Its stands among orchards on the N bank of the river. The church has a chancel with a S chapel separated from it by a 13thc 2-bay arcade; a 12thc nave with a later 12thc 5-bay S aisle without a clerestory and a S porch; and a tall W tower of 1717. The S doorway is 13thc, but the plain N doorway is Romanesque as is a stringcourse section reset in the exterior E wall of the S chapel.

History

Byford was held by Aethelweard in 1066 and by Walter from Roger de Lacy in 1086. It was assessed at 5 hides.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Exterior Decoration

Miscellaneous

Interior Features

Arcades

Nave
Comments/Opinions

Pevsner (1963) followed by Brook and Pevsner (2012) dates the 3 E bays of the arcade to c.1200; the remainder to the mid-13thc. The W corbel was reset at this time. This seems logical, although the trumpet scallops suggest that the E part of the arcade could be rather earlier, perhaps c.1170-90.

Bibliography

A. Brooks and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Herefordshire. New Haven and London 2012, 158-59.

Historic England Listed Building 149981

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Herefordshire. Harmondsworth 1963, 96-97.

RCHME, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Herefordshire, 3: North-west, 1934, 30-32.