BREDWARDINE is a village and parish pleasantly situated on the right bank of the river Wye, distant 12 miles W. of Hereford, 7 E. of Hay, 10 S.W. of Weobley, and about 4 from Eardisley and 3½ from Kinnersley railway stations on the Hereford, Hay, and Brecon branch of the Midland railway. It is in Webtree hundred, Dorstone polling district, Hay union and county court district, and is the head of a petty sessional division and highway district. The population in 1861 was 420; in 1871, 401 inhabited houses, 86; families or separate occupiers, 98; area of parish, 3,820 acres; annual rateable value, £2,923. The Rev. Sir George Henry Cornewall, Bart., of Moccas court, is lord of the manor and principal landowner. The soil is loamy; subsoil, sandstone and clay; chief produce, wheat, oats, beans, and roots. Here was formerly a castle, which stood on the banks of the Wye, which from the imperfect traces that remain appears to have been a strong and massive fortress. The ruins are said to have furnished great part of the materials used in the erection of the ancient residence of the Cornewalls at Moccas.

This place gave name to the family of the famous Thomas Bredwardine, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1349, surnamed the "Profound Doctor" for his great learning. On the summit of a bold eminence, known by the appellation of King Arthur's hill, and about 1 mile from the village, is a large and peculiar kind of cromlech, or Druidical remain, called King Arthur's stone. This place is much visited by tourists and pleasure parties. Bredwardine is in the diocese and archdeaconry of Hereford and rural deanery of Weobley; living, a vicarage, annexed to Brobury rectory; joint value, £300, with residence and 37 acres of glebe; patrons, the trustees of the late Rev. N.D.H. Newton; vicar, Rev. John Houseman, M.A., of Exeter College, Oxford, who was instituted in 1871. The church (St. Andrew's) is an ancient stone edifice, in a fair state of repair. It consists of nave and chancel with tower containing four bells. The earliest register is dated 1722.

This parish partakes in the largest charity in the county - viz., Jarvis's Charity, consisting of money left by G. Jarvis, Esq., A.D. 1790, and since increased by accumulation and falling in of legacies. The present income is upwards of £2,000 per annum, which is distributed according to a Chancery scheme of 1852, in the proportions of 13, 11, and 6, among inhabitants of Bredwardine, Staunton-on-Wye, and Letton respectively. The objects to which it is applied are - 1. Payment of a medical officer, supply of medical necessaries, and relief of the poor in sickness; 2. Maintenance in two almshouses, in the parish of Staunton, of six poor men and six women; 3. Contribution to clothing and coal clubs; 4. Permanent relief of sundry aged and infirm persons; 5. Maintenance of schools, and clothing of many of the children in each of the three parishes; 6. Occasional apprenticing of boys, at the age of fourteen, who have attended the schools. Mr. George Bates, Mrs. Bates, and Miss Bates superintend the schools in this parish, which are under Government inspection, and have an average attendance of 50.