We have had an interesting response to a query we made to the Wedgwood Museum, about these pottery pieces, found near the Royal Ordnance Factory, Rotherwas.

"Thank you for the pictures. You can just make out the 'Wedgwood &', and underneath 'Tunstall', which is useful.

I'm afraid that I can be of little help on this occasion as the ware in question is a product of Wedgwood & Co not Josiah Wedgwood (& Sons).
 
Originally founded around 1832 by Enoch Wedgwood in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent (Staffordshire), this factory (Wedgwood & Co) had nothing whatsoever to do with the firm known formerly as Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Limited, until 1980 when we were forced to take them over because of the ongoing confusion with the use of the Wedgwood name.  At the time of the takeover we were advised that their records had been destroyed in a series of fires in the 1950s, therefore we have no archive or other documentary material with which we can assist members of the public with enquiries relating to this former manufacturer.  You may however find this website of some use:
http://www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/1061.htm"

​We didn't know that before!

There will be an illustrated talk by our own Bill Laws at 6.30pm on Thursday 15th September 2016 at Herefordshire Archive & Records Centre (HARC), Fir Tree Lane, Rotherwas, Hereford HR2 6LA.

Herefordshire in 1913 was an old fashioned shire under the benevolent rule of the Church and the gentry. Its bishop was opposed to war and his successor was opposed to women’s suffrage. Many of its farmers refused to plough on a Sunday: many more regarded women as being incapable of farm work. By 1919 the shire was in mourning for over 4,000 men. It had employed over 4,000 women on munitions and another 2,500 on farms. It had put to the plough more rich, milk meadows than any other county in England or Wales. And it had deprived more children of a proper education than any other English county.
​
Herefordshire’s Home Front in the First World War is the story of what happened in those inter- vening years during the con ict they called the Great War.

The author, himself a former provincial journalist, has trawled the local press and history sources for a host of stories that reveal how people coped with the conflict at home: how the king turned former chauffeur George Butcher into England’s most famous ploughman; the persecution of Socialist war protester Stanley Powell; the gaoling of plucky Welsh munitioneer Elsie Abel who saved the Rotherwas National Filling Factory from an explosion; the fate of the German mistress Mary Bernstein and her child, caught hiding in Hereford; and the Belgian baby they called the Little Refugee. From the widowed Walford clergyman who tried to keep his seven servants from the front to the wounded Orcop soldier given his family home by public subscription, this is the story of a county at war at home.

Paperback, 176 pages with 85 illustrations, mainly photographs ISBN 978 1 910839 06 5 Price £10

Published by Logaston Press: www.logastonpress.co.uk, tel: 01544 327344

An article by Bill Laws on the Bassom - Bartonsham's Bathing Hut - has been published in our new Topics section. Please take a look, and add any of your own memories or further information in the comments section underneath.

Still to come are articles on schools, pubs, the dairy, shops, the Castle, war memorials and barracks. We welcome submissions! 

A new article on the old hospital has been uploaded to our website.

Did you used to live in Bartonsham? Do you have memories you'd be happy to share? The History Group will be at the Pavilion on Castle Green all day at the River Carnival on 30th April.

We would welcome any stories or pictures you can contribute to the local history of the area.

Do pop in for a visit, or email us here.

Hereford University Centre are holding a historical public research seminar on Thursday 28 January, from 4pm.  The event is entitled Witchcraft, Magic and the Devil in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries'', and is presented by Dr Darren Oldridge, History Senior Lecturer at University of Worcester.  Click here to download a flyer containing more information.
 
To attend, please let Julia Davis, University Centre Coordinator know on [email protected] or 01432 365 431 by 21 January.  

The lecture is free of charge, open to anyone interested in the subject area, and for those who may wish to receive a taster of a University-level lecture.