KNILL is a small parish situated on the borders of Radnorshire, distant about 3½ miles S.S.W. of Presteigne, 4 N. of Kington, and 24 N.W. of Hereford; is in Wigmore hundred, Presteigne union and county court district, Kington petty sessional division and polling district. The population in 1861 was 84; in 1871, 110; inhabited houses, 20; families or separate occupiers, 21; area of parish, 798 acres; annual rateable value, £734. Sir John Walsham, Bart., is lord of the manor and owner of nearly all the parish. The soil is loamy, producing wheat, barley, roots, and pasture. Knill is in the diocese and archdeaconry of Hereford and rural deanery of Weobley; living, a rectory; value, £74, with residence and 9½ acres of glebe; patron, Sir John Walsham, Bart.; rector, Rev. Henry Twells Mogridge, B.A., of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, who was instituted in 1873. The church, dedicated to St. Michael and all Angels, is situated in the grounds of Knill court. It underwent thorough restoration in 1873-74. The work includes entire rebuilding the walls of nave and chancel, new porch, new roof to chancel, new windows in nave and chancel, and reseating with open seats. The floor of nave and chancel has been laid with Godwin's encaustic tiles. The east window and north and south windows of chancel have been filled with painted glass, by Wailes, of Newcastle. It has a tower with three bells. Sir Samuel Romilly, Knt., a distinguished lawyer and statesman, was buried here. The walls of the nave are wellnigh covered with marble tablets to the Walsham family. A visit to the church and yard, under whose trees "the the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep", will well repay the visitor.

The rectory house was rebuilt in 1874. The parish registers commence with the year 1700. There is a parochial school for boys and girls, built at the expense of Sir John Walsham. Knill Court, the seat of Sir John Walsham, Bart., J.P., and at present occupied by Lieut.- Colonel Dallas, is a handsome mansion in the Elizabethan style of architecture. Sir John Walsham is the lineal descendant and heir of Sir John de Knill, Knt., lord of Knill in the 12th century. The beautifully romantic situation of Knill, its Swiss-like scenery of woody hill and fertile valley, through which sounds its bubbling stream, the Endwell, on a vast perpendicular rock, above which is perched, as it were, the mansion, from the windows of which you look out upon one of the fairest of the West of England's many valleys, and exquisite views. At the back rises the lofty furze-covered Knill Garraway, terminating on the right in the abrupt and perpendicular Hurrock, a landmark for miles, beyond which towers again the rugged, rocky Stanner, surmounted by the Devil's garden, of wide renown; on the other side the richly wooded steeps of Knill and Burva close the valley from that of Evenjobb and Old Radnor. Along the plain stretches a lovely valley of rich pasturage, terminating in the blue and hazy distance by Radnor forest, whose tops seem to mingle with the clouds.