Bishop's Wood, Herefordshire Genealogy

England Herefordshire Herefordshire Parishes



Parish History
Bishopswood All Saints was consecrated in 1845; funded by John Partiridge Esq who lived nearby at the Mansion House and owner of the Bishopswood Estate.

The "Church in the Woods" is on a steep hillside overlooking the Wye valley and is a simple Estate church built from nearby Forest of Dean stone. Electricity did not come to the church until 1963 to replace the oil lamps.

The Mansion House for the estate was destroyed by fire in 1870.

The Ecclesisastical Parish was formed from Walford, Herefordshire and Ruardean, Gloucestershire Ancient Parishes; the parish forms part of the county boundary with Gloucestershire, Ruardean, Gloucestershire being it's neighbour.

In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Bishops Wood like this:

BISHOPSWOOD, a chapelry in Walford and Ruardean parishes, Hereford; on the river Wye, 3¼ miles SSW of Ross r. station. It was constituted in 1845; and its Post Town is Walford under Ross. Acres and property, not reported. Pop., 403. Houses, 100. The property is much subdivided; and there are iron-works. The living is a p. curacy in the diocese of Hereford. Value, £35. Patron, J. Partridge, Esq. The church is good.

Bishopswood is the site of the 1895 discovery of the Bishopswood hoard of 17,458 mid 4th century coins which are now held at Hereford Museum and Art Gallery.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records.

Link to the Family History Library Catalogue showing the film numbers in their collection -no results found.

Census records
No census record entry appears in search for Bishop's Wood in the present microfilm listing for either county of Herefordshire or Gloucestershire in the film listing for the Family History Library. Nor is it present in Herefordshire Census Surname Index A-B

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal: Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.

to locate local Family History Centres in UK

to locate outside UK.

Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search.Find my Past 1911 census search

Poor Law Unions
Ross Poor Law Union,Herefordshire

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Herefordshire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.