Bockleton


Bockleton is a small village and civil parish in the Malvern Hills district of Worcestershire, England, south of Tenbury Wells. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 190. It is close to the Herefordshire border and is about east of Leominster in Herefordshire.

History

The village of Bockleton was originally called "Bocklington" until its name changed some time between 1785 and 1787 according to maps of the region. One of the earliest mentions of the village dates from 1246 in the life of Peter of Aigueblanche the then Bishop of Hereford. Extant sources state "In 1246 his new statutes on these points duly received papal confirmation. He was celebrated in the church of Hereford for his long and strenuous defence of the liberties of see and chapter against ‘the citizens of Hereford and other rebels against the church.’ He bought the manor of Holme Lacy and gave it to his church, appropriated the church of Bocklington to the treasurer, gave mitres, and chalice, vestments and books, and various rents."
The parish church of St Michael is a Grade II* listed building. It has an 1867 monument, in white marble, by Pre-Raphaelite sculptor Thomas Woolner to William Prescott, a local squire who died from an infection caught after tending his sick gamekeeper. It depicts him nursing the aged man.
Bockleton was in the upper division of Doddingtree Hundred.