Knightwick Index Page 2
Knightwick is steeped in history and some of the facts that can be learnt are as follows:-
Knightwick is a parish containing 857 acres, of which 8 acres are covered with water, on the Herefordshire border of the county, on the right bank of the River Teme. Sapey Brook forms part of its western boundary. The Worcester and Bromyard branch of the Great Western railway passes through the parish and has a station called Knightwick station just outside the parish boundary on the east. Suckley station, on the southern boundary, is in this parish at Knightwick Row. Two roads branch off from the Bromyard road near Woodford House in the north of the parish. One branch passes over the Teme at Knightsford Bridge and leads north to Martley, and the other branch leads southwards past Knightwick station to Malvern. From the latter road a branch passes south-west to Knightwick Row, and is connected by a cross road with the village of Knightwick. At the south-east of the parish near Suckley station is an early 17th-century half-timber cottage of one story with an attic, known locally as 'the old house.' Adjoining it to the west is a cart-shed, also of half-timber. The village contains a few cottages and houses, of no architectural interest, the rectory, a mortuary chapel erected in 1879 on the site of the old church of St. Mary the Virgin and a graveyard. The present church of St. Mary the Virgin for this parish and Doddenham is at Knightsford Bridge in Doddenham and was built in 1856. The manorhouse, the residence of Mr. Thomas Lawson Walker, J.P., stands to the west of the village. It is a red brick two-story house of U plan with tiled roofs, built in the Queen Anne period partly on the foundations of an earlier 17th-century building. The entrance front is on the south-east, with the main doorway covered by a light wooden porch in the centre. The four angles of the main block are pilastered, while the windows are long and narrow and glazed with small square panes; at the ends and back of the house are blank window recesses designed to complete the symmetry of the elevation. Above the hipped roofs two chimneys rise from the centre of the main block and two from the ends of the projecting wings at the back. There is a cellar under the south part of the house, the two-light mullioned openings to which on the south side retain the sandstone dressings of the earlier building. The hall, which is entered directly from the main doorway, has the parlour and dining room on the south, some domestic apartments on the north, and the staircase on the west, with a modern addition at the back filling the space between the two wings. Above the hall fireplace there is a carved oak panelled chimney-piece of the latter half of the 17th century, the panels being divided by pairs of slender turned balusters supporting a cornice. The walls of the parlour are covered entirely with Jacobean panelling in small squares with a fluted frieze. A recess on the south flanked by fluted Ionic columns supporting a cornice surmounted by a broken curved pediment is contemporary with the rebuilding of the house in the Queen Anne period. At the back of this recess is a painting of four nude children, probably of contemporary date. The plaster ceiling is divided into four deep panels with moulded edges. Above the modern fireplace is a piece of carved oak overmantel of the Charles II period. The stairs to the first floor are modern, but above there is an early 18th-century dog-legged stair with a moulded handrail and turned balusters.
The scenery of the valley where the River Teme has broken its way through the hills is very beautiful. The hills are usually rounded and wooded, but in places precipitous cliffs fall straight to the river as at Rosebury Rock. To the north are some old brickworks.
The north of the parish lies in the valley of the Teme, but the land rises rapidly to the south, reaching a height of 400 ft. above the ordnance datum at the south-eastern boundary. In 1905 Knightwick contained 290 acres of arable land and 487 of permanent grass. The subsoil is Keuper Sandstone, the soil loam, clay and marl, producing crops of wheat, beans, fruit and hops.
A quick thank you here, to several friends who have helped me with many of these images. They are Peter Walker, Major [Retd] Janet Brodie-Murphy, Garston Phillips, Geraldine Cooper, Nicholas Cronin and Keith Boulton.
Philip Holland
©peh