Hellens

Hellens Manor, also known as Hellens House or simply Hellens and located in the village of Much Marcle in Herefordshire is one of the oldest dwellings in England, primarily composed of Tudor, Jacobean, and Georgian architecture, but the foundations date from the 12th century, with some elements older still.

History

Earl Harold Godwinson was Lord of Merkelan, (Much Marcle) which included Hellens, from 1057 until his death as king at the battle of Hastings. Thereafter William the Conqueror gave the manor to his Standard Bearer Walter de Lacey. He awarded the Tythes to the monastic houses of Sainte Marie de Cormeilles and to Sainte Marie de Lyre in France. The whole was worth £30, an impressive sum for a Domesday Book village. By 1096 the manor had been granted to the de Balun family. The de Baluns were later to witness the signing of the Magna Carta.

Hellens, or Heliun,as it was then called, is first specifically mentioned in 1180, by which time the de Baluns had been created Lords of the Manor. in 1275 Sir Walter de Balun married Lord Roger Mortimer's sister Yseult (Isolde), and when Walter died she married Sir Hugh Audley. Their effigies can be seen in the parish church. Both of them, with Yseult's brother Roger, his mistress, Isabella queen of England, and the future Edward III, her son, are reputed (Gloucester Records office) to have waited in the great hall at Hellens for the Great Seal of England! Delivered to them by William le Blount, on the 26th of November in 1326, the Seal had been reclaimed from the king Edward II, then imprisoned in Monmouth Castle. Mortimer and the queen are considered to have arranged for the brutal murder of the king in Berkeley Castle.