Pudleston

Pudleston (or Pudlestone), is a small village and civil parish (alternatively Pudleston-cum-Whyle), in the county of Herefordshire, England, and is north from the city and county town of Hereford. The closest large town is Leominster to the west. At Pudleston is the c.1200 Church of St Peter, and the 1846 Tudor-Gothic Pudleston Court.

==History== According to A Dictionary of British Place Names and The Concise Oxfordshire Dictionary of English Place-names Pudleston derives from the Old English 'pytell' with 'dūn' meaning "hill of the mouse-hawk or of a man called Pytell". Listed in the 1086 Domesday Book as 'Pillesdune', it was written in 1212 as 'Putlesdone', in 1242 as 'Puttlesdune', and in 1249 as 'Pudlesdun'. Domesday describes Pudleston as a manor in the Wolfhay Hundred of Herefordshire, and with 14 households. There were five smallholders (middle level of serf below a villager), eight slaves, and a Frenchman. There was ploughland area defined by two lord's and two men's plough teams. In 1066, at the time of the Norman Conquest, Wulfward was the manorial lord, this later in 1086 passing to Hugh de Lacy, subordinate to Roger de Lacy the tenant-in-chief to king William I.