DORMINGTON is a parish and straggling village situated on the Hereford and Ledbury road, 5½ miles E. of Hereford, 9 W. of Ledbury, and about 2 S.E. of Withington and the same distance S.W. of Stoke Edith railway stations on the Hereford and Worcester branch of the Great Western railway. It is in Greytree hundred, Hereford union, county court district, and petty sessional division, and Tarrington polling district. The population of the civil parish of Dormington in 1861 was 77; in 1871, 121; inhabited houses, 20; families or separate occupiers, 25; area, 970a. 3r. 20p.; annual rateable value, £1,411. (The ecclesiastical parish contained 219 persons in 1871, with 34 inhabited houses.) The Lady Emily Foley, of Stoke Edith park, is lady of the manor and principal landowner. The soil is red loam, with a substratum of marl, very fertile, and well cultivated; chief produce, hops, wheat, beans, and pasture.

Dormington is in the diocese and archdeaconry of Hereford and rural deanery of Weston; living, a vicarage annexed to Bartestree chapelry; joint value, £239, with residence and 82 acres of plebe; patron, Lady Emily Foley; vicar, Rev. Langton Edward Brown, B.A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was instituted in 1844. The church, dedicated to St. Peter, is an ancient stone edifice, with nave, chancel, porch, and tower containing two bells. Divine service is held on Sundays at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. alternately. The earliest register is dated 1700. The charities for the use of the poor amount to about £5 10s. yearly. The children attend the new school at Tarrington, there being no Church of England school in the parish.

Bartestree, although a chapelry to Dormington, is a separate parish. It supports its own poor, pays its own rates, and appoints its own officers. It is distant 4¼ miles E. of Hereford, and about ½ mile S. of Withington station on the Hereford and Worcester railway, which line touches an angle of the township. The main road between Hereford and Ledbury and the little river Froome also intersect it. The population in 1861 was 61; in 1871, 98; inhabited houses, 14; families or separate occupiers, 16; area, 410 acres; annual rateable value, £851. The Rev. William Henry Gretton, Edward Smalley Hutchinson, Esq., and Miss James, are the chief landowners. There is fine feeding land in this locality; and hops, wheat, roots, &c., are grown. The scenery here is very picturesque. The chapel of St. James is a little stone building, of modern erection, occupying an exceedingly romantic situation. The living is united to Dormington vicarage, as before mentioned.

The Bartestree convent is of the Order of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, which was founded by the Venerable Father Jean Eudes at Caen in the year 1641, for the religious training and industrial employment of females who have fallen, or may be in danger of falling, into a vicious course of life. The inmates are employed in laundry work and plain sewing. The Rev. Peter Lewis is the chaplain. The building was erected from the designs of E.W. Pugin, Esq., architect, of London. There is a Roman Catholic church adjacent to the convent. The whole form a very handsome pile of buildings. The situation, four miles from Hereford, is happily chosen on an eminence, commanding a rich and varied panorama, and is an object of passing notice to the tourist and passengers along the highway, from which it stands a few yards distant. The children from Bartestree attend the national school at Lugwardine. Bartestree Court, an extensive farm, the property of the Rev. W.H. Gretton, is in the occupation of Mr. I.W. James.