Kilpeck is a village Herefordshire, England, southwest of Hereford, about five miles from Welsh border.
The village is renowned for its small but outstanding Norman (Romanesque) church, SS Mary and David's, but also has the earthworks of a Norman motte and bailey castle that is no longer standing. Previously until the 9th century, when it was taken over by Mercia, the area around Kilpeck was within the Welsh kingdom of Ergyng. After the Norman conquest, it became known as Archenfield and governed as part of the Welsh Marches. It became part of Herefordshire, and England, in the 16th century, although the use of Welsh in the area remained strong until the 19th century. The English name for the village derives from the Welsh name, Llanddewi Kil Peddeg with Llanddewi meaning "church of St. David" and Kil Peddeg probably meaning the "cell of Pedic", an otherwise unknown local early Christian hermit. In the Domesday Book of 1086, Kilpeck (described as Chipeete) was given by William the Conqueror to William Fitz Norman de la Mare, son of Norman de la Mare. The clan de la Mare is one of the oldest in Normandy and is descended from Ragnvald Eysteinsson, earl of Møre and Romsdal. There are mentions of a church on the site possibly from as early as the 7th century. There are vestiges of an enclosure, 200 yds (183 metres) by 300 yds (274 m) in the field, defining an Anglo-Saxon village. The St Mary and St David's Church was built around 1140 consisting of nave, chancel and semicircular apse. It is remarkable for its fine preservation of Norman stone carvings. They are all original both in form and position and incorporating many corbels with representations of human faces, hares, fish, fowl, stags etc. Eighty-five of 91 corbels survive, an extraordinarily high percentage. West of the church is a ruined motte-and-bailey and earthworks around 1090 as the administrative centre of Archenfield. A few walls of the 12th or 13th-century keep still stand on top of the motte; these are not well preserved. A fireplace and chimney flues are visible and two sections of standing castle walls
Size: 3152px × 4592px
Location: Kilpeck, Herefordshire, England
Photo credit: © Philip Chapman / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: anglo-saxon, apse, archenfield, bailey, border, carvings, castle, chancel, chipeete, church, corbels, davids, de, earthworks, enclosure, england, ergyng, eysteinsson, field, herefordshire, kil, kilpeck, la, llanddewi, marches, mare, mary, mercia, motte, nave, norman, peddeg, ragnvald, romanesque, ruin, st, stone, village, wales, welsh
