When Charles I and his Parliament went to war in 1642, Hereford was a strategic gateway to Wales and the Marches, and a firm Royalist stronghold.

The Parliamentarian Earl of Leven and his Scots army arrived just a few days after the King had left Hereford late in July 1645, but their progress had been slow: the Earl complained that it had taken a whole day to cover only eight miles on Herefordshire's poor roads.

The city defences had been strengthened since earlier, brief occupations by the Roundheads, and a large earthwork had been constructed along the Bartonsham meadow, roughly following the line of Park Street and Scots Close. The defenders fired or flooded the mines dug by Parliamentary forces under St Owen's Gate, and St Owen's Church, a valuable piece of cover for the besiegers, was destroyed. Hereford lost 21 men, their attackers 1,200.

The Scots left in September as the King advanced from Worcester. He stayed in Hereford for a few days and added to Hereford's existing coat of arms nine St Andrew's crosses to signify the nine regiments of defeated Scots. Scots Close was named in commemoration.

Towards the end of the Civil War, the Parliamentarian Col. John Birch decided to take the city once and for all, and to finally show the native's who was boss. He hid his troops near Byster's Gate and took Hereford early the next morning, in half an hour and with the loss of 10 lives.

​Parliament appointed Col. Birch as Governor of Hereford. He commented that the city was 'almost as difficult to keepe as to take', so it seems the citizens must still have remembered the motto the King had given them when he stayed there in 1645: Invictae fidelitatis praemium meaning 'The reward of invincible loyalty'.

Originally called Britons Street, Mill Street ran alongside the city ditch or moat as it drained into the river.  There had been water mills here since before 1527, utilising water-power to grind grain and fodder for local farmers. Over the next 200 years they were demolished and re-built several times, at the whim of King or Council. 
The Mills were supplied with water from the city ditch or castle mote, which was fed from Yazor brook.  Speede's map of 1610 shows two water mills on the line of the city ditch below the Castle. The upper mill was Dog Mill, situated around No 9 Mill Street, lower down; Castle Mill was closer to the river, later to be the site of the Hospital Lodge.  Taylor’s map of 1754, only shows the Castle Mill still remaining.

By the nineteenth century, the mills were long gone and the Castle Mill-pond (now the Duck pond) was part of the city's makeshift sewerage system.  Streets up to a mile away drained into it, via open ditches and culverts. The surface was covered in green scum, and the smell must have been unbearable on a hot day. At its southern end, the pond was less than 100 yards from the boundary of the Infirmary (the old General Hospital) which must have been an uncomfortable thought for the unfortunate patients. 
 
In 1853, Dr Henry Bull presented a report to the General Board of Health on the subject of infectious diseases.  He was convinced that the state of this pond was one of the contributing factors to the regular outbreaks of infectious diseases such as typhoid, cholera, scarlet fever and dysentery in the area. This report lead to the Hereford Improvement Act being passed in 1854, allowing for a complete rebuild of the city's drains and sewers.
 
Work began in 1855. Underground sewage pipes were laid and the Castle Mill-pond filled in, leaving just the pond we know today as the Duck-pond. The street was renamed Mill Street that year.

Originally published in JABA 6 by Sarah Willetts of Park Street.

Sources:  Shoesmith (1992), Roberts (2001), Spiers (1961)

St Owen Gate is near the site of the old city toll gate of the same name, which stood where the Indian restaurants either side of St Owen Street are now. It probably dated from around 1190, when Hereford's sheriff was granted the £56-0s-8d to build four city gates, and it stood until 1784.

In the nineteenth century, St Owen Gate was one of the most unhealthy areas of the city, right next door to the open sewer that was the Castle Mill pond. In the 1850s, when the area was described as being in 'a most miserable condition', the people of twelve households had just two outdoor privies between them. It's no wonder disease and infection was rife.

The old slums were eventually demolished and the present houses built in 1914 as 'model dwellings'. For some time, the St. James Primary School was nearby, roughly where the electricity sub station is now.

At least the slum dwellers were not short of places to drown their sorrows: at one time there were no less than six pubs with a stone's throw of St Owen Gate. The only remaining ones are The Victory (once the Bricklayers' Arms), and The Barrels (formerly the Lamb Inn). The name of this pub might owe something to the Knights Templar, who used the lamb as an emblem, and whose circular chapel was discovered in the 1920s further down St Owen Street.

The flats at the corner of Mill Street replaced the old Ship Inn, and now have a hidden corner in the garden where a piece of the old city wall has been recreated.

There are some interesting images of the gate on the Hereford City Heritage site.

It is not too hard to guess that the nearby church of St James was what gave St James Road and Terrace their names.

The church was first proposed in the early 1860s, as there was not one nearby to serve the many new houses being built at that time in the area. The foundation stone was laid in 1868.

The main force behind this new church was John Venn, Vicar of St Peter's and St Owen from 1833 to 1870. He was one of Hereford's greatest benefactors, founding the Society for Aiding the Industrious in 1941, to work towards better conditions for the (industrious) poor.

In between his parish duties he found time to establish many charitable projects, including soup kitchens (one of which survives in a tattoo parlour!); a flour mill and public baths; reading rooms and a library; public allotments and some "model cottages" complete with one privy each on Kyrle Street.

St James Church, also known as the Venn Memorial Church in tribute to the man, was almost destroyed by fire in 1901. Unfortunately, the insurance had just run out and the renewal forms 'in the post', but luckily the insurance company agreed to pay the £5,000 needed to rebuild. 

The church re-opened in 1903, although William Collins noted in 1915 that a tower and a spire were still to be added. He also recorded that the charities of the parish amounted to £40 per annum, while those of St Peter and St Owen combined only came to £27 pa. St James Road was named in about 1882 as one of the main access roads to the church.