OCLE PYCHARD or PITCHARD is a parish situated on the main road between Hereford and Bromyard, and bounded on the southern side by the Hereford and Gloucester canal; is distant 7½ miles N.E. of Hereford, 7 S.W. of Bromyard, 10 N.W. of Ledbury, and 3½ N.E. of Withington station on the Worcester and Hereford railway. It is in Broxash hundred, Bromyard union, petty sessional division, and county court district, and is the head of a polling district, the polling place being at Burley gate. The population in 1861 was 299; in 1871, 319; inhabited houses, 58; families or separate occupiers, 73; area of parish, 1,847a. 1r. 36p.; annual rateable value, £3,230. The Executors of the late James Leech Harrison, Esq., who are lords of the manor, the Executor of T. Postlethwaite, Esq., Rev. J. Glossop, Henry Higgins, Esq., and Mr. Wm. Wainwright, are the chief landowners. The soil is clayey, producing wheat, beans, hops, fruit, &c.

Ocle is in the diocese and archdeaconry of Hereford and rural deanery of North Froome; living, a vicarage; value, £198, with residence and 62 acres of glebe; patron, Rev. Henry T. Hill, M.A., of Felton rectory; vicar, Rev. W. Wilmot Hill, M.A., of Oriel College, Oxford, who was instituted on the 4th of January, 1876. The church, dedicated to St. James, is an ancient stone edifice, with nave, chancel, aisle, south porch, and square tower containing three bells. The interior was restored in 1869 at a cost of £620, and the east window filled with stained glass. There is also a window of painted quarry glass in the south side of the chancel. The earliest register is dated 1754. The day school at Burley gate, in this parish, was built by the late John Morley, Esq., and is now the property of, and mainly supported by, Henry Higgins, Esq., of Thing-hill. It is for the joint use of the parishes of Ocle-Pychard, Moreton Jeffreys, and Cowarne. The present average attendance is about 50. The boys of the parish over ten years attend Cowarne school.

There are charities belonging to the parish of £1 15s. yearly value. The St. George Cottage Home for orphan girls was established in 1867 by Mrs. Heywood of Ocle court. A limited number of children under eight years of age are received, maintained, clothed, educated, and trained in the various branches of household service. A situation is obtained for each girl when she reaches the age of fifteen, and she is sent to service provided with one year's complete outfit of summer and winter clothing, and 10s. placed in her name, deposited in the Savings bank, as a first encouragement to habitual laying up of some small portion of her wages. The present number of inmates is 15. Ocle Court, the residence of Lieut.-Col. Thomas Heywood, J.P., D.L., is a modern mansion, pleasantly situated on am eminence near the church. The Vicarage has been recently rebuilt. Livers Ocle, or Lyvres Ocle, forrnerly an extra-parochial place, containing 16 inhabitants in 1861, has been annexed to Ocle-Pychard parish under the Act of 20 Vict., c.19. In the farmyard are the remains of an old Roman Catholic chapel, now converted into an outhouse.