Lingen, Herefordshire
Encyclopedia
The village of Lingen lies in the wooded hills of Herefordshire
, England
in the Welsh Marches
near to the border with Wales
and close to the village of Wigmore. Situated in the north-west corner of the county, Lingen parish includes the hamlets of Deerfold, Limebrook, Birtley
and Willey
. It lies on the Limebrook which runs into the River Lugg
south of the village.
It lies at a height of between 145 and 283 metres above sea level
. This part of Herefordshire is remote and quiet and seen as the last unspoiled corner of the county.
and was sandwiched between two large post-glacial
lakes; one centred on Presteigne
, the other known to geologists as Wigmore Glacial Lake
.
Geologically, the region is based entirely on Silurian
beds, namely the marine Silurian and sizeable outcrops of Downtonian.
on a hillside near the village. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book
.
The village is close to the substantial Mortimer
castle at Wigmore
and there is evidence of an early motte and bailey castle in the village. It has not been excavated but the former presence of a stone keep
has been suggested, as well as a 12th-century gate-house, with a curtain wall
around the bailey
.
The village website suggests a Celtic
origin for the name of the village: place of sparkling water. Ling
is Old English for heather
and may be an alternative toponymological derivation. The Institute for Name Studies speculates that the name was originally that of a river.
The manorial lordship was held by the Lingen family until the 17th century.
s. There is some confusion as to the order to which it belonged, but in the time of Bishop Booth
, 1516-35, it was tenanted by Augustinian nuns and subsisted until the dissolution of the monasteries
. Remains now consist of a single ruined building.
.
reveal, the village population has been remarkably stable. Presumably there was a charabanc
trip on the night of the 1901 census but the population decline probably reflects the agrarian recession of the time when agricultural workers left the land for better paid jobs in the boom industries of the time - coal mining, quarrying and iron in Shropshire or further afield to South Wales.
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the Welsh Marches
Welsh Marches
The Welsh Marches is a term which, in modern usage, denotes an imprecisely defined area along and around the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods...
near to the border with Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and close to the village of Wigmore. Situated in the north-west corner of the county, Lingen parish includes the hamlets of Deerfold, Limebrook, Birtley
Birtley, Herefordshire
Birtley is a village in Herefordshire, in England. It is situated to the west of Ludlow and Leominster, approximately from both towns....
and Willey
Willey, Herefordshire
Willey is a civil parish in Herefordshire, on the Welsh-English borders. The main source of employment is farming and there were a total of 61 residents in the parish as of the 2001 census. The parish borders on Stapleton, Lingen and Presteigne....
. It lies on the Limebrook which runs into the River Lugg
River Lugg
The River Lugg , rises near Llangynllo, Powys. It flows through the border town of Presteigne, Wales then through Herefordshire, England, including the town of Leominster, south of which it is met by a tributary, the River Arrow, then to a confluence with the River Wye, which it joins at Mordiford,...
south of the village.
It lies at a height of between 145 and 283 metres above sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
. This part of Herefordshire is remote and quiet and seen as the last unspoiled corner of the county.
Pre-history
The village lies at the southern edge of the ancient ice sheetIce sheet
An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km² , thus also known as continental glacier...
and was sandwiched between two large post-glacial
Holocene glacial retreat
Holocene glacial retreat had a profound effect on landscapes in many areas that were covered by ice at the Last Glacial Maximum. The many valleys of the Cairngorms, a mountainous region in the Eastern Scottish Highlands are littered with deposits from this period.-Evidences of the retreat of the...
lakes; one centred on Presteigne
Presteigne
Presteigne is a town and community in Powys, Wales. It was the county town of the historic county of Radnorshire, and is in the Diocese of Hereford...
, the other known to geologists as Wigmore Glacial Lake
Glacial lake
A glacial lake is a lake with origins in a melted glacier. Near the end of the last glacial period, roughly 10,000 years ago, glaciers began to retreat. A retreating glacier often left behind large deposits of ice in hollows between drumlins or hills. As the ice age ended, these melted to create...
.
Geologically, the region is based entirely on Silurian
Silurian
The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...
beds, namely the marine Silurian and sizeable outcrops of Downtonian.
Early history
Occupied since at least the Middle Ages; there is evidence of medieval strip lynchetsLynchet
A lynchet is a bank of earth that builds up on the downslope of a field ploughed over a long period of time. The disturbed soil slips down the hillside to create a positive lynchet while the area reduced in level becomes a negative lynchet. They are also referred to as strip lynchets.They are a...
on a hillside near the village. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
.
The village is close to the substantial Mortimer
Mortimer
Mortimer is a popular English name, used both as a surname and a given name.- Norman origins :The origin of the name is almost certainly Norman, but the details are disputed....
castle at Wigmore
Wigmore Castle
Wigmore Castle is a ruined castle which is barely visible from the village of Wigmore in the northwest region of Herefordshire, England.- History :...
and there is evidence of an early motte and bailey castle in the village. It has not been excavated but the former presence of a stone keep
Keep
A keep is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word keep, but usually consider it to refer to large towers in castles that were fortified residences, used as a refuge of last resort should the rest of the...
has been suggested, as well as a 12th-century gate-house, with a curtain wall
Curtain wall (fortification)
A curtain wall is a defensive wall between two bastions of a castle or fortress.In earlier designs of castle the curtain walls were often built to a considerable height and were fronted by a ditch or moat to make assault difficult....
around the bailey
Ward (fortification)
In fortifications, a bailey or ward refers to a courtyard enclosed by a curtain wall. In particular, an early type of European castle was known as a Motte-and-bailey. Castles can have more than one ward. Their layout depends both on the local topography and the level of fortification technology...
.
The village website suggests a Celtic
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
origin for the name of the village: place of sparkling water. Ling
Ling
Ling may refer to:*-ling, an English diminutive suffix*Ling , a traditional Chinese medicine concept of shamanic power and spirituality*Ling County, in Shandong, China*Ling, the legendary Kingdom, ruled by king Gesar, in Mongol-Tibetan myth...
is Old English for heather
Cannula
A cannula or canula is a tube that can be inserted into the body, often for the delivery or removal of fluid or for the gathering of data...
and may be an alternative toponymological derivation. The Institute for Name Studies speculates that the name was originally that of a river.
The manorial lordship was held by the Lingen family until the 17th century.
Limebrook Priory
Located just south of the village centre a nunnery was founded before the reign of Richard I, either by Ralph de Lingen or one of the MortimerMortimer
Mortimer is a popular English name, used both as a surname and a given name.- Norman origins :The origin of the name is almost certainly Norman, but the details are disputed....
s. There is some confusion as to the order to which it belonged, but in the time of Bishop Booth
Bishop of Hereford
The Bishop of Hereford is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury.The see is in the City of Hereford where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Saint Mary and Saint Ethelbert which was founded as a cathedral in 676.The Bishop's residence is...
, 1516-35, it was tenanted by Augustinian nuns and subsisted until the dissolution of the monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
. Remains now consist of a single ruined building.
Victorian
In 1868 the village was described thus:St Michael & All Angels Church
Built of stone, the church dates back to the 13th century when the original was built. The current building was substantially repaired in the 19th century and the bell tower turret has attractive wooden shingles. It was re-dedicated on 22 April 1891 by the Bishop of HerefordBishop of Hereford
The Bishop of Hereford is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury.The see is in the City of Hereford where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Saint Mary and Saint Ethelbert which was founded as a cathedral in 676.The Bishop's residence is...
.
Population
As the censusesCensus in the United Kingdom
Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 and in both Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State in 1921; simultaneous censuses were taken in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, with...
reveal, the village population has been remarkably stable. Presumably there was a charabanc
Charabanc
A charabanc or "char-à-banc" is a type of horse-drawn vehicle or early motor coach, usually open-topped, common in Britain during the early part of the 20th century. It was especially popular for sight-seeing or "works outings" to the country or the seaside, organised by businesses once a year...
trip on the night of the 1901 census but the population decline probably reflects the agrarian recession of the time when agricultural workers left the land for better paid jobs in the boom industries of the time - coal mining, quarrying and iron in Shropshire or further afield to South Wales.
| Year | 1801 | 1811 | 1821 | 1831 | 1841 | 1851 | 1861 | 1871 | 1881 | 1891 | 1901 | 1911 | 1921 | 1931 | 1941 | 1951 | 1961 | 1971 | 1981 | 1991 | 2001 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Population | 247 | 244 | 284 | 298 | 285 | 296 | 287 | 272 | 293 | 88 | 276 | 263 | 255 | 215 | |||||||
| Population figures for Lingen, Herefordshire | |||||||||||||||||||||
Famous associations
- Albert LeeAlbert LeeAlbert William Lee, born 21 December 1943 in Leominster, Herefordshire, England, is an English guitarist known for his fingerstyle and hybrid picking technique. Lee has worked both in the studio and on tour with some of the most famous musicians which stretch through a very wide of genres...
, born 21 December 1943 and one of the world's greatest guitarists, was born in Lingen.
- Ralph Lingen, 1st Baron LingenRalph Lingen, 1st Baron LingenRalph Robert Wheeler Lingen, 1st Baron Lingen KCB was an English civil servant.-Background and education:...
, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury - Sir Henry LingenHenry LingenSir Henry Lingen , Lord of Sutton, Lingen and Stoke Edith, was a Royalist military commander in Herefordshire during the English Civil War, and later a Member of Parliament.-Ancestry:...
, Royalist Commander in the English Civil WarEnglish Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...