162 



was conveyed in December of the same year to William Page. From William 

 Page it was again conveyed to John Birch, 1st Aug. 22 Car. I. (1646). 



Mr. Lloyd then produced the actual Deed of Conveyance, dated 12th April 

 23 Car I. (1647) from John Birch to Sir Robert Harley, Edward Harley, Walter 

 Kirle, Bennet Hoskins, Edmund Weaver, and William Crowther, Esquires, in 

 consideration of £600 paid to John Birch, with interest at eight per cent : — " Bar- 

 gained and sold, unto and for publique use and benefitt, and behoofe, and advant- 

 age of the countie of Herefoid and the inhabitants thereof." This deed is signed 

 by " Ko. Harley " and " John Birch." 



Then came a survey of the " Scyte of the Ruinous Castle of Hereford, &c.," 

 dated 14th December, 1652. It is estimated at " five acres and a half," and to be 

 "worth £VI 10s. — grosse value £85." Other papers referred to orders of Here- 

 ford County Sessions, dated 1649, relating to a great sum of money due to the 

 county for "disbanding Coll. Birch's Regiment of horse and floot." Other papers 

 dated 1653 — referred to Militia money — showed that " Great part of the store of 

 the castle was disposed to the College of Hereford to build their new dining hall, 

 and somme to the citty of Hereford to build the Tolsey." "The gravell of the 

 Castle Mount hath been disposed off by order of Sessions." " The county doth 

 pay the rent of xxs yearly to the King reserved upon the patent of King Charles I. 

 to Sir Gilbert North." " At the county charge there hath been, by order of Ses- 

 sions, a house built upon the old gate of the Castle for the keeping of the records 

 of the county." In 1668, Orders of Sessions relating to this deed. In 1682, in 

 answer to the petition of a certain GriflBth Reynolds (often referred to under the 

 name of Africus), the Surveyor-General reports against it, and states " that the 

 fee farm rent of xxs p. an. had been paid constantly to the sheriff of the said 

 county of Hereford," &c.* 



It would appear that Sir Robert Harley had himself advanced the £600 pur- 

 chase money paid to John Birch, which sum, with 8 per cent, interest, remained 

 unpaid up to the time of Edward, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1748), when 

 his lordship "for and consideration of ye great regard and affection which he bear- 

 etli to and for his native county, the said county of Hereford, and for diverse 

 other good causes and considerations him thereunto moving, doth hereby exoner- 

 ate and discharge, so far as in him lyeth, the said premises and every part thereof 

 from the said £600 and all interest," granting the same to the Justices of the Peace 

 for the county. Another paper referred to the sale by auction at the New Inn, 

 Hereford, 25th September, 1800, of the old Bridewell, with garden and premises, 

 &c., being part of and appurtenant to the old Castle of Hereford. It was sold for 

 £500 to H. Hawkins. The Castle Green was for many years in the possession of 

 an amusing society called " The Society of Tempers," as tenants under the county 

 magistrates. This society was instituted in Hereford in the year 1752, for the 

 promotion of amiability and good temper, and it was dissolved November 4th, 

 1831, in consequence of the non-renewal of the lease of the Castle Green. The 



* See Duticitmb's History of Hereford, and the a?itiquitirs of the Comity, Vol. I, pp. 286 to 

 288, where this Survey is printed in full, and for Plate of Castle from Speed's Map, see Vol. I., 

 p. 229. 



