•  Goodrich, Herefordshire

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

GOODRICH, or Goderich, a township and a parish in Ross district, Hereford. The township lies on the river Wye, at the verge of the county, 4 miles SSW of Ross town and r. station; has a post office under Ross; and gives the title of Viscount to the Earl of Ripon. The parish includes also the townships of Glewston and Huntisham. ...

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Acres, 2, 421. Real property, £5, 636; of which £38 are in fisheries. Pop., 796. Houses, 175. The property is much subdivided. Goodrich Court is the seat of the Meyricks; was built since 1828, by Dr. Meyrick, the antiquary; is in the style of the period of Edward II.; and contains a rich collection of armour, antiquities, and curiosities. Goodrich Castle, now an imposing ruin, dates from very early times; was long the baronial residence of the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury; passed to the De Greys, Earls and Dukes of Kent; sustained a siege and dismantlement in the civil wars of Charles I.; went by sale, in 1740, to Admiral Griffin; and descended to the Admiral's grand-daughter, Mrs. Marriott. It shows distinct traces of restorations and enlargements, from an early period to a comparatively late one; it formed a parallelogram, of 176 feet by 152, flanked with round towers at the angles; and it commands, from its keep, a most enchanting view of the windings of the Wye, and of the circumjacent country, away to the Malvern hills and the Welsh mountains. "Its long and narrow galleries, sally-ports, batteries, vaulted gateways, semicircular towers, fosses, rock-hewn pits, huge buttresses, loop-holes, and machicolations, decorated chapel, ladies' tower, watch-towers, enormous fire-hearths, warder's seat, once a gorgeous hall, huge fire-places, great chambers of state, dormitories, garrison-towers, and spacious tables, -these, and many other objects, now broken either by time or by war, and mantled with venerable ivy, attest its grandeur and its strength, when, for six centuries at least, it held sway over surrounding districts, and looked down in its magnificence, as it does now in its decay, upon the waters of the beautiful Wye." A fine bridge across the Wye, erected at a cost of £8, 000, gives communication from the parish to Dean Forest. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Hereford. Value, £354. Patron, the Bishop of Hereford. The church is ancient but good; and has a tower and spire. There are a national school, and charities £34. The grandfather of Dean Swift was vicar.

Goodrich through time

Goodrich is now part of Herefordshire district. Click here for graphs and data of how Herefordshire has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Goodrich itself, go to Units and Statistics.

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