Hyssington

The Corndon flagstone quarries are on the south western slopes of Corndon Hill and date from Medieval times. From the air the quarries are still a prominent feature in the landscape. In this area the altered Hope Shales of the Ordovician period on the margin of the dolerite produce finely laminated flagstones which were widely used on building on the Shropshire-Montgomeryshire border. Only a few buildings still have the flagstones as roofing slates, including the Old Post Office at Churchstoke and the porch to Hurdley Farmhouse.[2]

In the survey of Halcetor in 1609 a quarry of tile stone is mentioned in the said fforest of Corndon and that it should be let for 20 shillings a year.[3]

In 1951 Professor F W Shotton of Birmingham University identified the source of the rock used for shafthole battle-axes and axe-hammers as picrite which had been quarried from Corndon Hill.[4] Production sites of stone axes and shafthole implements have been grouped by petrology and the Hyssington/Corndon Hill implements are known as Group XII. As the production of these implements in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age did not employed the same flaking techniques as stone axes, which leave recognisable flaking debris, the site or sites of the Corndon Group XII implements production will be very much harder to identitify. However the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust did excavate several small quarry depressions in 2008, but only found evidence of fairly recent disturbance. A stone slab with striations which was suggested was an example of Neolithic art, could equally well have been early plough marks[5]

The main distribution of Group XII implements is in mid-Wales, the Midlands, the Cotswolds and stretching across to East Anglia. By 1988, 93 examples of these implements had been identified and all of these implements have shaftholes for hafting and there are no examples of picrite being used to produce axes.[6]

Hyssington Church, Montgomeryshire, Interior

St-Aethelthryth from Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, 10 C British Library

The church is dedicated to the Saxon Saint Æthelthryth (or Æþelðryþe); about 636 – 23 June 679) is the name for the Anglo-Saxon saint known, particularly in a religious context, as Etheldreda or Audrey. She was an East Anglian princess, a Fenland and Northumbrian queen and Abbess of Ely. The existence of a Saxon church dedication that is likely to be 7th or 8th century in date and just to the east of Offa's Dyke, which runs through Churchstoke parish must be significant. The dedication should indicated an early Saxon or Mercian settlement and there is a possibility that an earlier Saxon hall or settlement lies under the adjacent Norman motte.

According to a local legend, the church has a miniature bull buried beneath the church step. It is said that the bull terrorised the neighbourhood until it was exorcised by twelve priests.[8]

The building is a long single-chambered church with a west bell hanging, rebuilt in 1875 by Thomas Nicholson, the Hereford Diocesan architect. Plain plastered interior with scissor-rafter roof, and wagon roof in the chancel. The font is late medieval, octagonal and quite large. There is a good early 17th century pulpit with intricately carved panels. St. Etheldreda's church has an almost rectangular sloping churchyard, with views over the Shropshire hills.[9] This churchyard contains the Commonwealth war graves of four British Army soldiers, three from World War I and one from World War II.[10]

Although physically in Wales, the church at Hyssington is within the Church of England Diocese of Hereford. When the Welsh Church Act 1914 had been passed to disestablish the Church in Wales, Hyssington with Snead parish straddled the England-Wales border. The Welsh Church Commissioners therefore carried out a ballot of parishioners in 1915 to decide whether the parish of Hyssington with Snead should remain part of the Church of England, or form part of the Church in Wales. The parishioners in Hyssington with Snead voted by 108 to 33 to remain part of the Church of England.[11]

Chapel at White Grit

So-named after the White Grit lead mines. This is to the North- East of the village and was built to serve the mining community which was just over the border in Shropshire. The Mission Church is a corrugated iron tabernacle of the later19th century.[12] It has an apsidal east end, with Gothic windows and a corrugated iron bellcote. The matchboarded interior with its fittings survives.[13]

Primitive Methodist Chapel

Built 1889. In the village South of the church. Small, stone-built with some brick detail.

• Brynawel is a nicely preserved three-bay house of the later C18; three colour-washed bays with iron casements.
• Hyssington Farm is an early 17th-century timber-framed house with a lobby entry and stellar chimney stack. Three bays, the cross wing with good exposed close-studding. C18 rubble extension to the right.[14]
• Cefn, One mile north of the village. Small square-framed house of c.1700. Three-bay front with central entrance, and end chimneys
• Great Brithdir, ¾ mile north west. Dated 1695. The stone-built house sits on a masonry platform. Lobby-entry L-plan[15]