Credenhill is a village and
civil parish in
Herefordshire,
England,
Near Credenhill is the site of the former
Royal Air Force station
RAF Hereford, which is now the headquarters of 22
Special Air Service Regiment.
Credenhill has links to
cider production, one of Herefordshire's key industries.
In 1887 Percy Bulmer founded the
Bulmers cider company. The then 20 year old son of the Reverend Charles Bulmer (rector at Credenhill) used apples from the
rectory garden for the company's first produce.
Thomas Traherne, the 17th-century English poet and religious writer, was rector of Credenhill for ten years.
Surrounding area
There is an
Iron Age hill fort half a mile north of Credenhill. Archaeological finds are in Hereford Museum. The
defences of this very large hill fort follow the 600 ft contour and enclose nearly 50
acres (200,000 m²). They comprise an embankment and ditch with a slight counter-
scarp bank. There are traces of a
quarry ditch inside the main
rampart around most of the circuit. Original in-turned entrances are at the centre of the east side and at the south-east corner, each approached by a
hollow way cut deeply into the hillside.
Trial
excavation has shown that the internal quarry-ditch is 5–10 ft deep. Its gradual in-filling was found to include various
occupation layers associated with rectangular wooden buildings with four corner posts, measuring about 12 x , which had been rebuilt several times in the same place. There were also storage pits and other remains of occupation including
pottery with stamped and incised patterns typical of the West
Midlands Iron Age. Date, c. 400 BC; occupied continuously until about 75 AD. The fort and the surrounding ancient woodland are now part of the
Woodland Trust.
External links