page_title: History of Herefordshire
section_title: Welsh control
hierarchical_section_title: History of Herefordshire / Historical setting / Welsh control
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph by courtesy of Dr Rhobert Lewis (Brecon).
context_page_description: The History of Herefordshire starts with a shire in the time of Athelstan, and Herefordshire is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1051. The first Anglo-Saxon settlers, the Magonsætan, were a sub-tribal unit of the Hwicce who occupied the Severn valley. The Magonsætan were said to be in the intervening lands between the Rivers Wye and Severn. The undulating hills of marl clay were surrounded by the Welsh mountains to the west; the Malvern Hills to the east; the Clent Hills of the Shropshire borders to the north, and the indeterminate extent of the Forest of Dean to the south. The shire name first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was derived from "Here-ford", Old English for "Army crossing", the location for the city.
  The area was covered first by Offa of Mercia, who constructed the dyke as a boundary to keep warring tribes out of the Mercian kingdom: an early indication of the ambivalent relations with the Welsh. The shire as an administrative unit was developed from Alfred the Great's Burghal Hidage, and the Shire-reeve courts of the Hundred.
context_section_description: Before the arrival of the West Saxons, the region roughly corresponding to modern Herefordshire lay under the control of earlier Welsh kingdoms, principally the minor kingdom of Ergyng.  Welsh origins in Herefordshire are evident in the survival of the Welsh language in parts of the county until the 19th century, the survival of many Welsh place names and the historic Welsh commote of Archenfield.
  "Archenfield was still Welsh enough in the time of Elizabeth for the bishop of Hereford to be made responsible together with the four Welsh bishops for the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Welsh. Welsh was still commonly spoken here in the first half of the nineteenth century, and we are told that churchwardens’ notices were put up in both Welsh and English until about 1860."
  Welsh was spoken by individuals until comparatively recently. The photograph shown is of a plaque in Welsh on display in St Margaret's Church, near Newton, which was dismantled from the roof of the nave during restoration in 1902. The plaque is dated 1574. 
  A bilingual printed notice of the duties of churchwardens is also displayed in St Margaret's Church. It is likely to be at least 170 years old, since the churches transferred from the diocese of St David's to that of Hereford in the middle of the 19th century. Two fire-damaged Welsh bibles from Rowlestone are kept in the Herefordshire County Archives.
caption: Notice of duties of Churchwardens in English and Welsh, in St Margaret's Church, Herefordshire
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