England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Willersley St Mary Magdalene

The Parish

The parish of Willersley lies in the extreme west of Herefordshire close to both the border with Radnorshire & Breconshire. Willersley is located roughly 7 miles east of the Breconshire market town of Hay and sits on the A438 road which connects Hay with Hereford. There is very little to today's Willersley, a real blink-and-miss-it kind of place with just a farm or two and some cottages amongst fields just north of the Wye, the notional centre of this hamlet lies a half mile west of the junction of A438 with A4111. Sitting on the edge of the Wye's floodplain the principal economy would have been underpinned by cattle farming on the lush pastures created by seasonal flooding. The Wye drains the parish eastwards on its long journey to reach the Bristol Channel through the port of Chepstow, Willersley is sited at around 60 metres above the sea, in its valley setting it is dominated by the isolated outcrop of Bredwardine Hill which tops out at 291 metres and sits around 3 miles away to the south across the Wye. In a county of small parishes Willersley manages to be one of its smallest, covering a mere 235 acres it supported a population barely registering with the census takers, it hovered between zero and 25. In Domesday times Willersley was a much larger settlement of 18 households, held by one Ralph de Tosny it could muster 11 ploughs.

The Church

St Mary Magdalene was deconsecrated and converted to a private house in 1981, it sat on the southern side of the A438 opposite the main group of farm buildings. A simple church of nave & chancel in one it nevertheless remained relatively untouched from the earliest origins. The Norman Romanesque style of the 12th century is the basic fabric with later lancet windows of the 13th century Early English Gothic and 14th century Decorated style additions too. The timber porch which fronts the church was added in the 17th century and, despite the small congregation, a Victorian restoration of 1887 also occurred. Final changes were made in 1981 as part of the transfer to secular ownership. As the property is now a private house it should only be viewed from public roads and the privacy of the residents respected.