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Sarnesfield is a parish, 12 miles north-north-west from Hereford railway station, 10 from Leominster railway station, and 7 from Kington, in Wolphy Hundred, Weobley Union, Kington polling district, and Hereford archdeaconry and bishopric; it is situated on the road from Hereford to Kington and Aberystwith. The church is a very ancient stone building in the Early English and Norman styles; was repaired about 1853; has tower, nave, side aisle, chancel, three bells, and porch containing several monuments. The living is a rectory, worth £194 yearly, with residence and 47 acres of glebe land, in the gift of Thomas Monington Webb Weston, Esq. The churchyard contains the tombstone of John Abel, the celebrated architect of the Market Houses of Hereford, Leominster, Kington, Brecon, and Weobley, who died in the year 1694, aged 97. This stone displays his own effigies, kneeling, with those of his two wives, and the emblems of his profession, the rule, the compass, and the square; it was designed and sculptured by himself; the epitaph was also his own composition, and runs thus :-

This craggy stone a covering is for an Architector’s bed;

That lofty buildings raised high, yet now lyes low his head;

His line and rule, so death concludes, are locked up in store;

Build they who list, or they who wist, for he can build no more.

His house of clay could hold no longer,

May heaven’s joy frame him a stronger.

John Abel.

Vive ut vivas in wham aeternam.

The population, in 1851, was 135, and the acreage is 1,256. The soil is a strong loam on a clay subsoil. John Arkwright, Esq., is lord of the manor; and R. W. Eastwick, Esq., and Thomas Monington Webb Weston, Esq., are chief landowners.

Letters through Hereford. The nearest money order office is at Weobley.

Brace Thomas, farmer, Bach

Dudley Rev. Joseph, B.A.

Matthews Thomas, farmer, Hallstone

Skyrme Richard, farmer, Woodmonton [sic]

Weaver Thomas, farmer, Middle Sarnesfield

Woodhouse Thomas, carpenter, joiner, and parish clerk, Meer

Source: Edward Cassey & Co.: History, Topography, and Directory of Herefordshire. Printed by William Bailey, 107, Fishergate 1858.