Revisiting Clyro

Whilst we regularly drive through Clyro on the main road which takes us towards Hereford (and ultimately Malvern), it has been a long while since I last visited it.  Many many years ago a friend gave me a book entitled "After Kilvert" and I will confess, it was a good few years before I finally got around to reading it, and then regretted not having done so earlier, as I was captivated by the Rev. Francis Kilvert, who was a Rector here at St Michael's Church, from 1865 - 1872.   I then sought out his diary, which I have read and re-read and dipped into many times down the years, and it is a delight to read.  He wrote about the people of the parish, and their memories and experiences.  He fell in love several times but the fathers of the young ladies concerned would not allow him to offer hiss hand in marriage to their daughters because he had nothing to offer - Clyro was such a poor parish and he had no real prospects.

Whilst he did eventually marry (Elizabeth Ann Rowland, who he met in Paris), he sadly died from Peritonitis just 10 days after their marriage.  By that time he was the Vicar of Bredwardine, also on the Welsh Marches.  He was born in 1840 and died in September 1878, aged just 38.  He is buried in the churchyard there.

He kept a number of diaries, but sadly only 3 remain and are kept in the archives at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.  In the 1950s, when William Plomer, to whom these diaries had been passed on by Kilvert's widow, contemplated publishing more of his diaries, he was horrified to discover that all Kilvert's remaining diaries and papers had been burned by a surviving elderly great niece - who was ironically President of the Kilvert Society!  She said that she had done so to protect "private family matters."  What a loss.

The church of St Mary's Clyro, where Kilvert was curate for 7 years.

The Baskervilles lived at Baskerville Hall, now a private hotel.  This is I think a son of the Baskerville who Kilvert visited, born 1884 and who died in WW1.  The Baskervilles had links with Marlborough and other parts of Wiltshire, and Kilvert was born in Wiltshire, and his father was the Vicar at Langley Burrell.

Kilvert was the curate of the Rev. Richard Venables.  This gravestone is in memory of his third son, Joseph, who died at Lysdinam, the family home and estate in Newbridge-on-Wye.

Ashbrook - the house where Kilvert lived when he was curate of Clyro.  It subsequently became the Kilvert Gallery (which I visited once, from curiosity of course!)  It was put on the market several years back at a silly price of £800,000.  It is worth, without the Kilvert connection, not much over half that . . .  Sadly, as you can see, there have been no takers and it is boarded up.

I will try and find time to return later and add a couple of extracts from his diaries.