Holme Lacy, Herefordshire - Extract from National Gazetteer, 1868

"HOLME-LACY, (or Holm-lacey, or Holm-lacy), a parish in the hundred of Webtree, county Hereford, 42 miles S.E. of Hereford, its post town, and 8 N.W. of Ross. It is a station on the Hereford, Ross, and Gloucester railway, which intersects the parish. The village, which is irregularly built, is situated on the Wye. It formerly had a small Premonstratentian abbey, founded in the reign of Henry III. by William Fitz-Warine, the site of which after the Dissolution passed from the Lacies to the Scudamores. There is a ferry in the neighbourhood which crosses the river to the village of Fawnhope.

The tithes have been commuted for a rent-charge of £515. The living is a vicarage* with the curacy of Boulstone annexed, in the dioc, of Hereford, value £543. The church, dedicated to St. Andrew, is a stone structure, with a tower containing eight bells. The interior of the church contains several monuments of the Scudamore family, also one of the late Duchess of Norfolk. The parochial charities produce about £133 per annum, with a bull value £20, to be divided among the poor annually.

Here is a free school for both sexes, and a boys' Sunday-school, founded in 1833 by Lady Stanhopp, of Holme House, which is the principal residence. It is a very ancient mansion, rebuilt by the last Viscount Scudamore, the friend of Pope, who wrote his "Man of Ross" here. It is situated in a secluded spot, and has a wooded park, with extensive pleasure-grounds, part of the latter being formed after Hampton Court Palace gardens. The interior of Holme House contains several rare paintings by Vandyck, Jansen, and Holbein; also one of Sir James Scudamore of Elizabeth's time - the "Sir Scudamore" of Spenser. It also has carvings by Gibbons, Hamilton's "Solomon and Queen of Sheba", Le Brun's Louis XIII., and Pope's copy of the Earl of Strafford.

There is a venerable pear-tree near the parsonage house covering a quarter of an acre of land. Some time since the wind forced a branch to the ground; the upper part not being entirely detached from the trunk, it eventually became rooted, a process which has subsequently been imitated with other branches, which likewise have now become fruitful, and yield altogether from 12 to 16 hogsheads of perry. Sir Edwin Francis Scudamore Stanhope, Bart., of Holme House, is lord of the manor and chief landowner."

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)
Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]