WITH the exception of the Scottish borderland, Herefordshire has seen more strife than any other part of the country according to author Ella Mary Leather, whose early 20th century guide to county folklore has just been reprinted.

When the Weobley solicitor’s wife first shared her researches in The Folklore of Herefordshire in 1912 she reported that there were traces of more than 40 castles and fortified buildings.

Harried by Norsemen early in the 10th century, there was evidence of their presence in the county, including a grisly trophy on the church door at Pembridge.

Mrs Leather described a “tough leathery substance” lingering there for centuries, believed to be the skin of a ”sacrilegious Dane”.

From her desk at Castle House in Weobley, she wrote: “From a very slight study of the place-names on a modern map, it would be possible to conclude that the part of Herefordshire bounded on the west by the Wye was never really subdued or occupied by the Saxons.

“To the east, nearly all the names are Saxon with the characteristic suffixes – ton, ham, wick, hope ley, low – while defensible places have names ending in ‘bury’.”

Now thanks to Andy Johnson’s swansong project before retiring from Logaston Press, the publishing house he developed in 1985, the rigorous researches by Mrs Leather into disappearing county customs more than a century ago can now be gleaned by new generations of readers.

In a foreword, Andy and his wife, Karen point out the “desire for a reprint of this much-loved book”, and a short biography of Mrs Leather, daughter of a Dilwyn farmer and hop grower, has been written by John Simons, who lives in her former home.

John’s grandmother was nanny to Mrs Leather’s sons, and he has been able to include previously unseen details and photographs.

Born in 1874, at the age of 19 she married Francis Holdsworth Leather, whose childhood was blighted when his father abandoned his young family. When ‘Frank’s’ mother died at the age of 33, he and his sister Isabella were brought up under the care of John and Emily Bulmer at Uplands in Hereford. Later, he and Ella Mary were presented with Castle House as a wedding gift from the Bulmers.

In a Hereford Times report in 1910, there is reference to Mrs Leather’s interest in local history. By that time, the Leathers had acquired the Old Grammar School next door, where a ground-floor room provided a quiet study for her writings.

*The Folklore of Ella Mary Leather is available in paperback at £12.95.