Introduction
The small Herefordshire parish of Moccas is situated on the meandering River Wye. It can be reached directly via the B4352 road which travels east for a distance of 12 miles from Hereford to Moccas; it passes through the village and continues on to Hay On Wye, some 9 miles away.
The Parish
As a small parish there is very little documentary evidence for the early existence of Moccas, but a series of place names on an estate map, dated 1773, can be used to reveal the topographical character of the parish in earlier times.
At the southern extremity of the parish where the wooded land rises to the height of 900ft above sea level, the place name ‘Woodbury’ gives a very interesting suggestion that a fortified building once existed there. ‘Bury” comes from “burh’ which is the source of names like Aconbury and Backbury – both Iron Age hill forts.
On the lower slopes of Woodbury Hill is a field name with a probable Welsh origin ‘Cowcombe’. The latter element probably derives from the Welsh ‘cwm’ – a hollow or a valley. Another Welsh place name element ‘bar’ meaning hill, is found in the field ‘Worth Barr’ that rises from the roadside.
Moccas lies west of the Wye which, until the Norman Conquest, was regarded as the natural boundary; it was agreed in Athelstan’s treaty c.930. But there are a number of place names which appear to have Old English roots, and they are found almost entirely in the east of the present parish. Not far below Great Cowcombe Meadow lies Hannabs Close, Hannab probably deriving from ‘heah’ or ‘hean’, appropriately both Anglo/Saxon words for ‘high’. It is likely that the name of the roadside farm, Rowlsford, (previously Rolls Ford) also has Old English origins in the word ‘ruh’ meaning ‘rough’, hence ‘Rough Ford’ (Rowley in Durham also derives from ‘ruh’). Kinley Farm lies just outside the east parish border; the word ‘Kinley’ is found throughout England, it derives from the Anglo/Saxon word for ‘royal’ – ‘Cyne’. The Worth, a neaby field, is also a common Old English word, it means ‘enclosure’. Closer to the River are the Clenny and the now extinct Bilhouse Orchard; the former finds it Anglo/Saxon origins in ‘Claene’ meaning ‘Clean of weeds’, and the latter from ‘bile’ – a narrow piece of land.
The Great and Little Haws are not on the east side but in the northern bend of the River Wye; nevertheless ‘haw’ is almost certainly from the Old English ‘haga’ – this is often a hedged piece of meadow, for example, the Haw Meadow at Tewkesbury beside the Severn.
At the centre of Moccas lies Standard Farm, possibly the Middle English name for a standing stump or tree.
The Old French word for land belonging to a bailiff of the Manor, ‘baillie’ is probably the origin of the former Bailey Gobbells which joined the Clenny. A further piece of Norman evidence exists in the Lawn at the base of the deciduous Moccas Deer Park. The Old French launde means an open space in a woodland that is specific to deer hunting, thus suggesting that this graceful animal might have roamed the 200acre park since Norman times as, indeed, a herd of 80-100 fallow deer do today. If the whole of the Park was included within the actual parish border, it would notably increase the acreage of Moccas but it is strange that, apart from the small corner containing the Lawn Pool, Moccas Park is officially in the parish of Dorstone.
Moccas Castle, now merely a marshy collection of small grassy tumps, can be found to the east of the Park. The Common, once an extensive stretch of wasteland reaching from the village school (which closed in 1949) to Hannab’s Close, has now completely disappeared, although one house down Woodbury Lane still bears its name. The Brickilns, still a field of rich, red Herefordshire soil, was one of two yards used to produce bricks for many buildings in Moccas, including Moccas Court.
In the north-west corner of the parish, flanking the River Wye, is Depple Wood, previously called Depwell Wood; the presence of many springs in the wood hints that the original title was probably ‘deep well’. Just south of this wood, two field names; the Scalenge and Glebe Scalenge, are somewhat of a problem. ‘Scallage’ and ‘Schallenge’ are West Country words for lychgate and the place name can be found at Bromyard in Herefordshire.
But Moccas Church possesses no lychgate and the fields in question are a little distance away from the churchyard, although ‘glebe’ suggests that the land was part of the Church living.
In the same area of the parish there is evidence of a former open-field system of farming as West Field and Church Field were common names used within this type of system and they are both present here.
It would be more appropriate to call Church Yard Coppice a park as it has fewer trees today. The wood was probably thinned out during Sit George Cornewall’s improvements of the Moccas landscape in the 18th century. It certainly provides an advantageous approach to Moccas Church which is sited on a slight tump. After entering the Coppice over the cattle grid at the Daw Lodge and travelling along the unfenced road for a short while, once can look to the left across the marshy hollow that has formed between the two fertile meadows, to view the neat, tufa-stone Norman church of Saint Michael & All Angels. And in the near background to the right, flanked by dark green trees, stands the red brick Georgian mansion: Moccas Court, built in the late 18th century for Sir George (Amyand) Cornewall.
The Cornewall family, the Moccas landlowners, disappeared in 1962 when Sir William, a bachelor, died 10 years after his brother, Geoffrey, also a single man. The estate passed onto the Chester-Masters, but the Cornewall death duties meant that much of the land across the River had to be sold, and it greatly diminished in size. A second breach came in 1960 when Moccas toll-bridge that linked Monnington On Wye to the Moccas Estate, was damaged by floods and had to be demolished in 1964.
Earliest Reference to Moccas
G H Doble’s study of The Lives of the Welsh Saints and his use of ancient texts such as the Book of Llandaff provides a valuable insight into the early history of Moccas as Saint Dubrucius (c.470-550) (Dyfrig in Welsh) founded a monastery there in the 5th century. It is claimed that Dubricius was the earliest Bishop of Llandaff and he probably brought Christianity to the Welsh (paralleling Saint Ninian’s mission to the Picts and Saint Patrick’s to Ireland).
The Life of Saint Dubricius gives us the marvellous story of how a monastery was sited at Moccas, which was part of the Welsh kingdom of Ergyng.
The Church
Standing in its own small knoll at the northern end of the parish, enclosed within a sloping churchyard of yew trees and box bushes, is the almost perfect little Norman church, virtually identical to how it looked 800 years ago. Although today the church is isolated from any other buildings, it is believed that a community once existed in its immediate vicinity - as early as the time of Saint Dubricius who, it is recorded, built a settlement as well as a monastery at 'Mochros'. Because Moccas church lies directly in line with the view from the Court, it is likely that the earliest inhabitants of a house on this site influenced the removal of the village to another section of the parish.
The ecclesiastical building may be Norman, but the site on which it stands has been a place of worship for some 1500 years. The Welsh Saint Dubricius may have founded a monastery here that played an important role and produced the 8th Bishop of Llandaff Comeregius, in the 6th century. After this, Mochros Abbey is not referred to again but between c.1100 and 1130 the Normans constructed the church building we can still see today. It is in basilica form (like the Roman judgement halls that were adapted for worship) and made up of coarse, squared, local white calcareous-tufa (also used on Bredwardine church in the adjoining parish, but not as extensively)
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