Description:

Abbey Dore [Dore] Poor Law Union was formed in 1837 under the authority of an elected Board of Guardians representing 29 parishes, which were divided into three administrative districts. The parishes in the Union included Craswall, Llancillo, Llanveynoe, Longtown, Michaelchurch Escley, Newton, St Margarets, Rowlestone and Walterstone in Ewyas Lacy as well as neighbouring parishes in the Golden Valley.

The new Dore Board of Guardians met for the first time on 11th April 1837 and the first order of business was to elect a Clerk and authorise him to recruit a Relieving Officer for each of the districts. The next task was to find a site for a new workhouse for 80-100 inmates, and the Board eventually settled on a piece of land called Upper Drewe just to the north of Abbey Dore. The Workhouse was built on it in 1837-38 by the firm of Johnson and Pearsons to the design of architect John Plowman. The tender price for the building work was £1,498, financed by a Government loan of £2,000 to cover the construction and other set-up costs. The Poor Law Commissioners duly approved the plans but noted that the proposed building lacked any special work-rooms, a mill room or bakehouse, washing places and a “dead house”. The Commissioners did not require the Board to make any commensurate alterations, but later evidence shows that most of these deficiencies were corrected in due course.

The first Master and Matron took up their duties in the completed Workhouse on February 18th 1839. The likely layout of the building at that time is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1887 below, depicting the usual workhouse design of separate courtyards for men and women each of which is also subdivided to separate adults from children.

In 1900 several additions to the workhouse were built. To the north, new casual wards [for vagrants] were erected. To the east a new infirmary wing with receiving wards and bathrooms in the centre was added to the existing complex, and a hospital block was built. The architect was E H Lingen Barker. The resulting workhouse layout is shown on the 1905 Ordnance Survey map:

A sketch of the workhouse in its later years shows essentially the same structure, and indicates the probable locations of the various facilities. [North is to the right in the sketch]

The Workhouse system was ended in 1929, but the site continued to operate as a Public Assistance Institution to care for the aged and poor until 1935 when Hereford County Council informed the District Council that it intended to dispose of the buildings. By the time war broke out in 1939 nothing had been decided as to their future use, and during the war part of the site was used as a factory assembling Allis Chalmers tractors from components shipped in from America and brought via the Golden Valley Railway to the nearby goods yard at Bacton station. 

Photographs of the Workhouse buildings

After the war the buildings were sold and privately redeveloped into a group of residential dwellings known as “Riverdale”. The principal elements of the old Workhouse structure and architecture can still be seen in the post-war Ordnance Survey map below.

The overall Workhouse layout can also still be seen clearly in the present day satellite images of Riverdale from Google Earth.

Modern-day Estate Agents’ Sale Particulars for two of the Riverdale development properties, ‘Abbey View’ and ‘Cropolis’ can be seen by following the links below. These particulars provide interior and exterior details, photographs and floor plans which give further insights into the design and structure of the old workhouse and how it was adapted.

Abbey View has been formed from what was the women’s section of the Infirmary block on the eastern side of the workhouse before its redevelopment after the Second World War.

Cropolis has been developed from the old workhouse Boardroom, Master’s Quarters, Kitchen and Dining area that comprised parts of the central and western wings of the original structure.

Photographs taken for the Ewyas Lacy Study Group of other parts of the Riverdale development in 2014 show how the majority of the old workhouse buildings survive in their new uses as residential flats and houses.

The western façade shows, left to right in the picture, the Casual Ward and Porter’s Lodge, then the main Workhouse buildings comprising the Receiving Room and men’s accommodation, the Boardroom and Master’s accommodation in the centre and the women’s accommodation to the right.  Behind this were the two enclosed yard areas, for males to the north [left] and for females to the south.

Vagrants were employed in, amongst other things, breaking stones and the ground floor of the Casual Ward contained ‘cells’ for the purpose. These had metal gratings with holes of the requisite size for the broken stone to be pushed through for collection outside and were presumably where the ground floor windows on the left of the picture can be seen today.

This picture from the outside shows the northern return wing [left] that with the western façade [right] formed part of the enclosure of the Men’s Yard inside the workhouse.

The Boardroom for meetings of the Dore Union Guardians was in the centre of the building on the ground floor, with the Master’s accommodation above enjoying pleasant views over the Dore Valley to the hills beyond. The accommodation for women inmates was to the right in this picture.

The Infirmary was a later addition c.1900 and is externally little changed. The separation between the female [nearest] and male sections of the infirmary is still plain to see, and reflects the rigorous segregation that was characteristic of the Workhouse system. Part of the old driveway round the perimeter of the workhouse is seen in the foreground of the photograph.

The single story building in the foreground of this picture consists of garages today, but is on the site of the old mortuary. Behind, the Women’s accommodation in the western block and the women’s section of the Infirmary block form the framework for the Women’s Yard inside the workhouse complex. The southern wing that completed the yard enclosure has been demolished, as has part of the central block.

The men’s’ and women’s yards were separated by the central block of the workhouse, part of which can be seen on the extreme right of this photograph taken from the women’s yard.

This photograph is taken from inside the men’s yard and shows the remaining portion of the central block, which housed the kitchen and scullery. The rest of the block, which originally continued from the gable end shown here and joined up with the Infirmary, completed the separation of the two yards but reportedly burnt down and was demolished prior to the redevelopment of the site.

The Infirmary was divided into a men’s and women’s section. This photograph has the original women’s block in the foreground, and shows the gap between the two sections where the central block once joined up with the Infirmary to separate the two yards.

The Men’s Dayroom [centre] and the Receiving Room [the return block, right] are seen here from inside the Men’s Yard of the old workhouse. Chairs and leisure equipment would not have been a feature of the yard back then.

This photograph shows the Porter’s Lodge from the south east, with the roof of the old Casual Ward just visible behind. These facilities were located at the north end of the complex, with stables originally alongside them to the east. The stables reportedly burnt down, and today there are garages where they used to be, flanking the roadway that now affords entry to the Riverdale complex from the north.

Residents at Dore Union Workhouse

Inmates of the Workhouse came from a variety of backgrounds including tradesmen, farmers and other ‘respectable’ folk who had fallen on hard times [often in old age in an era where retirement on a pension was not an option for most], people suffering mental or physical impairment who were unable to support themselves, vagrants unable or unwilling to find work, and children taken in with one or both parents. The 80 or so inmates of the Dore Union Workhouse recorded in the 1901 Census are probably fairly typical of the population mix, and are listed below for illustration.

The 1901 Census returns for local parishes have been transcribed by Barbara Griffiths and the extracts listed below for the Dore Union Workhouse are reproduced with her kind permission, for which we are most grateful. Please respect the author’s copyright and do not copy these details to other web pages or publications.

1901 Census Transcriptions - Herefordshire

Registration District: Hereford
Registration Sub-District: Kentchurch (RG13/2484)
Enumeration Round 1. Abbeydore (part)

The items included from the census are Name, Relationship to head, Marital Status, Age, Occupation, whether an Employer, Worker or Own Account, whether Working at home, Birth Parish and Birth County, although not all items are recorded in all entries. Some entries have comments appended.

Folio 5b Page 2

Schedule No.8: Dore Union

Folio 6a Page 3

(Schedule No.8: Dore Union contd.)

Folio 6b Page 4

(Schedule No.8: Dore Union contd.)

Workhouse Records

Further documents concerning the operation of The Dore Union Workhouse can be found at Herefordshire Record Office, Holdings include Guardians' minute books (1837-1930), Admissions and discharges (1850-1916, with gaps), and Births (1914-30).

Observations:

Ordnance Survey Map images are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland from their map images website.

Other entries on our website relating to Workhouses and the Poor Laws in Ewyas Lacy include:

Booklet: Dore Workhouse in Victorian Times by Nancy Elliot, [from which the summary account of the Workhouse history above is largely drawn]

Research paper: The Poor Law in Longtown 1820-1840 by Nina Wedell

Transcript: Poor relief in Longtown: Transcription of extracts from the Longtown Vestry Minutes

Transcript: Transcriptions of resettlement Orders for Longtown Paupers