Bishop's Wood, Herefordshire Genealogy

England Herefordshire



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
See Herefordshire Census

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.