Canon Frome

Canon Frome is a small rural parish on the River Frome, 5 miles northwest of Ledbury, Herefordshire, England with a population of 139. Its most notable feature is Canon Frome Court which is a Grade II listed large red brick country house. The house was originally a sixteenth century moated manor house but was extensively rebuilt, incorporating earlier parts of the building, in 1786 and again in 1868. It was for 300 years the ancestral home of the Hopton family. It now forms a cohousing community.HistoryThe first known occupation of the site was by the Roman army who had a fort near the river, the remains of which are still traceable today. The Canons of Llanthony Abbey established themselves here in 1280.The Hoptons came to prominence at Canon Frome through the marriage in 1591 of Michael Hopton, a knight of Shropshire, to a widow named Martha Hareford the heiress of the Canon Frome estate.During the English Civil War the then moated House contained a Royalist garrison under a Colonel John Barnold with 120 men. It was captured in 1645 by a Scots army under the Earl of Leven. The house was ransacked, and some 70 men of the garrison were killed by Parliament's men. Many of the dead were buried where they fell. There was said to be a field named Bloody Acre in the area, and Oliver Cromwell is reputed to have rested here sometime before the Battle of Ledbury in 1645.