Hereford; Saturday, 12 July, 2025

I’d booked a Prem Plus room which came with it’s own fridge, so I’d been able to buy some fruit juice and meats and cheeses from the Waitrose the previous evening, meaning I didn’t have to worry about making the hotel breakfast times, which was good as by the time I woke up it was the wrong side of 09:30.

After breakfast I headed out into town to go for a bit more of a wander, starting by heading over to St Peter’s Square which is the administrative centre of the city, home to a large church, the Shire Hall (main offices of the County Council) as well as the Town Hall. From there it was a short walk to High Town and my first attraction of the day, the Old House

Originally built by a wealthy butcher as part of a terrace of buildings, it served as both a butchers and a hardware store before being converted to a bank. During that time the rest of the terrace was demolished to enable the widening of High Town and when the bank took over they inserted windows, designed on the rest of the buildings windows, on the two gable ends that had previously been attached to other buildings, making it look like it’s always been a stand alone building. Inside there is an exhibition on the history of the building, and to some extent the town as well, and on the upper floors recreations of how the rooms would have looked when the Butcher lived here.

From the Old House I wandered a bit further through town, popping into the imposing All Saints Church which has a very tall spire, and inside has been partially converted into a café, though the prices were a little high to warrant stopping off to sample their wears.

From the All Saints Church it was a short walk down to the Cathedral where I spent quite a bit of time looking around the building, which in places dates back to the Norman rebuilding of the cathedral on the site of an original Anglo-Saxon church. Located to one end of the cathedral complex is the Cathedral library, famous for being a chained library where all the books are in containers that are chained to the shelves so you can only view them at the benches within the shelving.

The library is also home to the Mappa Mundi, the largest medieval map of the world that was painted onto a single calf skin, some time around 1300 and depicts the world as it was known then (so just three continents), as well as religious elements, showing the location of Heaven, Hell and the Garden of Eden.

From the Cathedral I grabbed a quick lunch before headed back across town, past the remains of the old city walls, and over to the former Headquarters of cider makers Bulmers. The building was sold by the company to the city in the 1980s and was converted into a museum to Cider, showing the history of the drinks production and even allowing access down into the cider cellars, dug beneath the building in the 19th century, when the company developed the champagne method for making cider.

After partaking in a small tasting at the end of the museum visit I headed back into town and crossed over the Old Bridge before going for a wander down the opposite bank of the river from where there are excellent views back to the city centre and the Cathedral tower, I crossed back over to the cathedral side using the Victoria Bridge, built to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria at the end of the 19th century. The bridge takes you into the Castle Green.

Castle Green is the site of the former Castle of the city. Though it was pretty much already just being used as a quarry by the time of the civil war, the fact the city fell on the Royalist side and held off parliamentary forces for most of the war it meant that the victorious parliament wanted revenge, and following their victory it was one of many castles across the country which was slighted, or demolished to the extent that it couldn’t be used as a defensive position ever again.

After taking in Castle Green I headed back to the hotel to cool down from all the walking in the heat before heading out for a bite to eat and then once the sun went down heading back into the city centre to have a wander around in the cool of the night, taking in the floodlit cathedral as well as the city’s statue of a Hereford Bull.