We did find a site with three photos, nice ones, and another that presents some historical information, including a link to four journal entries by an Edwin Russell in 1872 about some union business in Pembridge.  Otherwise what we have to say has to suffice for the time being.

 

We stayed in a campground at the east end of the village and walked through most of it.  The many half-timbered black and white buildings are pretty old and look it, even though they are extremely well kept up.  Painted nicely, pretty gardens.  Their  long age is indicated by the fact that some of the buildings do not have a straight timber, or a true square, or a plumb vertical anywhere.  One must wonder how they remain upright, which they seem to have done since the 1500's and some even before that. 

 

We took a left up a little hill street to find a very old wooden covered market.  It had some new timbers indicating that someone was interested in preserving it.  Diagonally across the street were some steps leading up to a church.   A sign proclaimed it as dating from the 13th or 14th century. (We can't remember which.  Our letter says 13th, we remember 14th and that is what is on the photo captions.  Both are correct and we could add the 12th century as well.) We went up the stairs to see a very nice churchyard, St Mary's church and a separate bell tower.  There is a great photo of the church and tower on the web, better than any we have.  And the church has a web site with a tour that describes various parts of it and their dates.  We explored both and walked around the churchyard, taking photos.  Then we headed back.  We saw no one on the streets during the whole walk. But three visitors, like us, came into the church while we were there. Otherwise, we heard no sounds of life.  And I am not sure that we even saw a car moving.

 

There is a castle nearby, Pembridge Castle, no doubt having once belonged to the Lord Pembridge whose tomb we saw in the cathedral in Hereford and who fought in the historic battle of Poitier under the Black Prince in 1346.  We did not visit it.

 

That is all we can write about Pembridge, except that we would not have missed it.  Pembridge is a very charming village.  Our photos should convince you of that.  And perhaps it has a lively night life.

 

There is not much more about the town in the letter we wrote home after our visit.  We visited three or four such towns that day.  I guess that was too many.