Cymru, March 2018 XV, Hereford Weeps

Even if I was in Herefordshire for the day, I was still staying in Wales so it counts. And I found wonderful things in Hereford Archives and Records Centre (HARC)!

After exhausting my known sources, I sat on the banks of the Wye and had a late picnic lunch. This was the view:

Then I walked past and back over the old bridge

I wanted to see the Mappa Mundi and chained library. But they were closed as there was to be a funeral service.

Cleric lighting candles

It was not a great disappointment, as I was able to see the Weeping Window of poppies that has been traveling through Britain to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of World War I.

The skies were weeping too, so I sought shelter in the Black and White House Museum.

It is a faithfully restored home of the Civil War Era (Mid-1600s). They had cannonballs that had been found in house remodels from when a Scottish Army allied with Parliament besieged the Royalists in Hereford (1645).

War is heck and Civil Wars are heckier.

The house representing a middle-class businessman of the Cathedral City was beautifully restored.

The Master's Bed with trundle and those weird bed sticks to beat down the mattress and likely the servants and family, too.

And I was reminded why I need to retire.

Not able to see the Mappa Mundi, I headed out for adventures in the rain taking the long way home.

I found Sollershope, the birthplace of  Sister Mary Taylor Mayo, who died on South Pass when Elinor Vaughan went on with Ellsworth's Handcart Company (1856).

St. Michael's, Sollers Hope, Herefordshire

The cross is 15th Century, restored by WWI Vets as their War Memorial.

On the way back to Wales, pretty close to the border on the Radnorshire side of the Wye, I visited Brilley where our Jenkins family may have originated.

St. Mary's, Brilley, Herefordshire

Brilley is another farming parish with no clear center except for the church.

Plenty of daffodils in the churchyard at St. Mary's, Brilley.

And there were great views across the Wye Valley to the Black Mountains above Hay.

We almost caught some rainbows on the way back to Talgarth.