Hill Court Manor

In 1698 the building of Hill Court was initiated by Richard Clarke, the son of a country gentleman, whose family, it is believed, made their fortune importing clover seed to England in the seventeenth century.

Work on Hill Court progressed, but Richard died in 1702 before his house was finished and the task of completing the building was passed on to his brother Joseph.

There were not many surviving accounts from the building but records show that on 21 September 1700 the sum of £71 12s 9d was paid to Robert Wayman for all the brickwork in the house walls and drains.

After Jane's death the Clarke estate was divided and Hill Court was inherited by her second cousin Kingsmill Evans, who, in the early nineteenth century, extended and improved the gardens belonging to the house.

It reads:- "These piers, moved from the east end of the avenue were in course of erection and the gates were in the making as a 21st Birthday present to Guy Harold Trafford when he was killed in a motor accident on his way to Queens College Oxford, 8 October 1933."

At her invitation Felsted School from Essex was evacuated to Mrs Trafford's three Herefordshire houses for the duration of the Second World War to be out of the way of German bombing.

When Felsted School left it became clear that it was impossible to maintain two large houses, so Dorothy Trafford moved back to Hill Court.

The Grade II listed[5] closed church was built in 1905–06 to designs by George Frederick Bodley in memory of Major Lionel James Trafford.