IV.

Education and Culture

Two historic independent schools, the Cathedral Grammar School (founded 1384) and the Blue Coat School (founded 1710), are located in Herefordshire. The Royal National College for the Blind (founded 1872) is in Hereford.

William Langland, believed to be the author of the medieval poem, Piers Plowman, was possibly born in Ledbury in c. 1332. Nell Gwyn, orange-seller, actress, and mistress of Charles II, was born in 1650 in Hereford, which was also the birthplace in 1717 of the great actor David Garrick. Elizabeth Barrett Browning spent most of her childhood and youth near Ledbury, and John Masefield was born in the town in 1878.