What is "burghill"

Burghill is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, north-west of Hereford. The parish includes the villages of Burghill, Tillington, Portway and Eltons Marsh.

The village of Burghill has a Norman church, St Mary the Virgin, and a village hall, the Simpson Hall, that has been modernised. There is a golf club, Burghill Valley Golf Club, in the heart of the village. The whole area is surrounded by apple and pear orchards and is a centre for tourism. The local pub is the Bell Inn, situated between Burghill and Tillington. The vicar at the church is the Rev. Preb. Jimmy Morrison.

In the Doomsday Book, compiled soon after the Norman Conquest, the name of the village is spelled Burgelle; in 1169 in the Pipe Rolls, Burchil; in 1212 in the Red Book of the Exchequer, Burghulle. It has been Burghill for the last eight centuries.

It has been suggested that Burghill may have been the site of the first castle to have been built in England. It would have been built before the Norman conquest, about the year 1051, by Normans in the service of Osbern Pentecost, a follower of Ralph de Mantes and supporter of Edward the Confessor.