This Midlands county offers the best of all worlds, from sedate, pastoral scenery to dramatic river valleys, quaint villages packed with pretty black-and-white buildings, mighty castles – & heart-pumping exercise! Lying on the Welsh border, it also offers more than 200 historic gardens, a majestic 11th century Norman cathedral, a beautiful capital city and a rare sense of quietude. Among significant places of interest are the Wye Valley, dominated by a gorge at Symond’s Yat, the ravishing Malvern Hills, the mountain-flanked Golden Valley and the 8th century defensive earthwork Offa’s Dyke. Perhaps its two greatest treasures – housed at Hereford Cathedral – are the world’s largest chained library & the 13th century Mappa Mundi, one of the earliest maps. The latter was created at a time when Jerusalem was considered the centre of the known world. Some of the greatest landscape designers worked in the county, including Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown & Humphrey Repton, and Herefordshire was the epicentre of the so-called ‘Picturesque’ movement which swept Europe in the 19th century. The visitor’s first impression of this bucolic landscape is of a backwater locked in a time-warp & hardly industrialised. Indeed, it is ripe with pastures and fruit-laden orchards.
In spring comes fragrant blossom while autumn is awash with the berries of mistletoe. Many of the region’s villages have a timeless quality but one of them, Eardisland, is widely thought of as the prettiest village in the Midlands. The glorious River Wye meanders through the county, springing up from the Black Mountains in the south. Constantly changing, it is a Mecca for water-sports enthusiasts. An important stop-over is Hay-on-Wye, which is now a major centre for bookshops & hosts the International Festival of Literature. In the east of the county, the Malvern Hills run along the border with Worcestershire, rising dramatically from rolling countryside. They inspired the Worcestershire-born composer Edward Elgar and offer not only breathtaking views but one of the finest walks in England. One of the summits is the 1,000ft Herefordshire Beacon, topped by the Iron Age hill fort ‘British Camp’. According to legend it was here that the Romans captured the heroic British chieftain Caractacus, king of the Catuvellauni. The great Saxon city of Hereford was one of the first towns to be founded in England following the departure of the Romans. It was turned into a fortified settlement by Alfred the Great and by the 10th century had its own mint and a weekly market. Later it was guarded by a Norman castle & a city wall. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6725676
