a separate section of the Domesday Book account of Herefordshire. Domesday recorded that "King Gruffydd and Bleddyn laid this land waste before 1066; therefore what it was like at that time is not known". It also stated the Welsh of Archenfield were allowed to retain their old rights and privileges in return for forming an advance and rear guard when the King's army entered or left Wales. The local priests were required to "undertake the king's embassies into Wales", presumably providing a translation service. The exemption from services was mentioned again in 1250 and 1326, when it was stated: "The Frenchmen and Welshmen of Urchenesfeld hold their tenements in chief of our lord the King by socage, rendering 19 pounds 7 shillings and 6 pence. And they ought to find 49-foot-soldiers for our lord the King in Wales for 15 days at their own cost." Later history The Welsh inhabitants of Archenfield thereafter retained their privileged position, living in a shadowy border land that was not really part of England nor Wales. Around 1404, Owain Glyndŵr and his troops raided the area. Glyndŵr himself may have died around 1416 at Kentchurch, within Archenfield, an area which he considered to be part of Wales. The evidence of its Welsh history remains in many placenames and field names. Uncertainty over the border persisted until the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 - often known as "The Acts of Union" - tidied up many of the administrative anomalies within Wales and the Marcher borderlands. However, no consideration was given at the time to ethnic or linguistic realities, and so various territories were grouped together in a rough and ready manner to form the new shires. Archenfield was thus bundled into Herefordshire as the Hundred of Wormelow. Archenfield remained a predominantly Welsh-speaking region until at least the 17th century, and the language was still spoken to a significant extent in the Kentchurch area as late as 1750. It almost certainly persisted longer than this and Welsh continued to be spoken in Archenfield well into the modern period: (Ewyas, the other Welsh-speaking area of Herefordshire, was in the diocese of St David's until late in the 19th century.) A plaque in St Margaret's Church in the Golden Valley is in Welsh and is dated 1574. Many of the rights and customs of the people of Archenfield were maintained until comparatively recently. Men born in