Geograph - photograph every grid square

Richard's Castle is unusual in that it is shared between two counties, but still one village . It was once a market town (11th/12th century), based on a market place near St Bartholemew's Church and the pre - Conquest Norman castle. The proximity of Ludlow, just across Bringewood, killed off the town through competition and it declined into its current state of a loose collection of villages.

The current centre as such is probably the Castle Inn. This is near the sites of the smithy and shop, all gone in my lifetime and just south of the village hall and site of the school in the Shropshire sector. The church suffered subsidence and flitted over the border to its current site in Batchcott, and is now dedicated to All Saints. St Bartholemew's is still used for occassional services. The school is now amalgamated with Caynham and Ashford Carbonel as Bishop Hooper's and was famed locally for its high academic standards.

The parish once had a couple of football teams. Woofferton (who now play in Little Hereford) were and are the more successful of the two, while Richard's Castle played a few divisions lower down in the Herefordshire leagues and judging by the state of their ground seem to have packed in. The cart races on Hanway Common are probably the biggest sporting events in the village now.