BOSBURY is an extensive parish and very picturesque village, distant about 4 miles N. of Ledbury and 13 E. of Hereford; in Radlow hundred, Ledbury union, county court district, and petty sessional division, and Coddington polling district. The population in 1861 was 1,090; in 1871, 1,005; inhabited houses, 231; families or separate occupiers, 260; area of parish, 4,725a. 2r. 7p.; annual rateable value, £8,120. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners are lords of the manor, and the Rev. Edward Higgins, of Bosbury house, and John Pitt, Esq., of Temple court, are the principal landowners. The soil is a deep heavy clay, and produces excellent cider and hops. Bosbury was once a place of considerable importance. Its Saxon name was Bosamberig, or Bosa's town. It early became a residence of the Bishops of Hereford, for an old MS. in the British Museum tells us that "the Bishops of Hereford held their state here, and dwelt in a fayre palace in the time of King Offa", A.D. 757 to 796, and the Old Court estate and lordship of the manor has belonged to the see ever since.

According to Leland, Bishop Athelstan died here in 1056. The Norman prelates also lived at Bosbury. It was the favourite residence of the great Bishop Cantilupe, St. Thomas of Hereford, and his friend, and successor Bishop Swinfield died here A.D. 1316. The parish is in the diocese and archdeaconry of Hereford and rural deanery of South Froome; living, a vicarage; value, £400, with residence; patron, the Lord Bishop of Hereford; vicar, Rev. John Edmund Cheese, of St. David's College, Lampeter, who was instituted in 1866. The church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was erected in the twelfth century. It has undergone three restorations; in 1851 in the Rev. J. Underwood's incumbency, in 1859 under the Rev. Berkeley L. Scudamore-Stanhope, and was completed in 1871 under the Rev. J. E. Cheese. The total cost of restoration was about £3,100, nearly the whole of which was defrayed by voluntary subscription. The tower is detached from the church, and is a massive square structure containing six bells and a clock. It was originally surmounted by a wooden spire.

Entering the church by a Norman doorway, the interior is seen to consist of a long nave, divided from its side aisles by six pointed arches, resting on round pillars, with capitals, characteristic of the Transition period. The clerestory windows, the triple lights of the west end, and the very beautiful lancet windows of the side aisles, are of the same date (about A.D. 1180). An interesting fan tracery screen of oak divides the nave from the spacious chancel, which was entirely rebuilt by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners at the last restoration, when an organ-chamber was built on the north side of the chancel for the reception of a splendid organ presented to the parish by Mrs. Hope, sister of Mrs. Higgins, of Bosbury house, at whose cost also the chamber and warming apparatus were erected. The case is of pitch pine, and the front double diapason pipes are richly coloured. Messrs. Speechly & Ingram, Camden works, London, were the builders; cost, £800. Encaustic tiles adorn the chancel floor.

There are two very curious and well-preserved sepulchral monuments on either side of the altar, one representing a recumbent figure of John Harford, with the date 1573, the other having figures of Richard Harford, son of the former, and his wife. The old pre-reformation open seats in the nave have been preserved. There are some fine specimens of ancient carving inserted in the pulpit. On the south side of the nave is the mortuary chapel of Sir Rowland Morton, a beautiful specimen of late Pointed architecture, temp. Henry VII. This chapel is embattled on the exterior, and is lighted by windows of the peculiar shape and tracery of the time when it was erected. Near this is the oldest inscription in the church, painted on the wall in old characters, in memory of the father of Bishop Swinfield, who died in 1282, but the inscription is now illegible. The font near the west end of the church deserves notification, being of large size, square, and supported on five short pillars, and is of thirteenth-century date. But an older one is preserved, forming a very rude round cavity of sandstone, which is presumed to be of Saxon origin.

In the churchyard is a well-restored cross of red sandstone. The parish registers begin with the year 1558. There is a grammar school for boys, endowed by Sir Rowland Morton with lands yielding a rental of £108 per annum. There is also a national school for girls. The number of children under instruction at both schools is 138. The Wesleyan chapel at Stanley hill is a neat brick building, erected in 1863. The Primitive Methodists have a chapel here also. Among the objects of curiosity in this parish may be mentioned "the ancient oak-room" at the Crown Inn, where the Harford family once resided, which is wainscoted round, and above the fireplace, under carved circular recesses of Jacoboean date, are placed the arms and quarterings, duly blazoned, of the Harfords and their relatives. Singular enough, the oak wainscoting on one side of this room had been transferred to the church to make a reredos, but in the late alterations being deemed inappropriate, it has been sent back to the place from whence it came. The "Swinfield Lodge of Oddfellows" hold their meetings in this room.

Temple Court, the residence of John Pitt, Esq., was formerly a preceptory of the Knights Templars, and afterwards of the Knights Hospitallers. There are interesting monumental slabs of each preserved in the church. The gatehouse, and a room where the original ceiling of massive parallel oak beams are still entire, are the only remains of the Bishop's palace, which was taken down about the year 1572. From a claim for dilapidations against the executors of Bishop Scory, A.D. 1586, preserved in the British Museum, it appears that the Court hall was 80 feet long, 40 feet broad, and the height between the foundation and the wall-plate 20 feet. There was also a stage-hall 40 feet long and 20 feet high, kitchen, and brewhouse.

In this episcopal hall many most important matters were transacted. Here on the feast of St. Gregory, 1278. Bishop Cantilupe challenged the judges who had been appointed by the Court of Rome, to decide upon the cause between the see of St. Asaph and that of Hereford, and appealed to the apostolic see. This he did in all due form in the presence of many witnesses. First he read the appeal in Latin, and afterwards expounded it to them in French, and was careful to have it recorded that this was done in his hall at Bosbury before dinner. The columbarium, or pigeon house, is an almost unique specimen of such a building, temp. Edward I. Bosbury House is the seat of the Rev. Edward Higgins, M.A., of Brasenose College, Oxford, J.P. for Herefordshire and Worcestershire, and D.L. for Herefordshire. It is a spacious red brick and stone mansion in the Italian style, with balustrades and portico; and contains a rare collection of valuable early printed books, MSS., drawings, engravings, curiosities, and articles of virtu. Upleadon is a township about 12 miles W. of the village; Catley is ½ mile N.