Eye, Moreton and Ashton is a civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England. The parish is north from the city and county town of Hereford. The closest large town is the market town of Leominster, to the south. Within the parish is the National Trust property of Berrington Hall, and the villages of Eye, Moreton, and Ashton.

History Medieval to 18th century Eye is from the Old English 'ēg' or 'īeg', for the place at "the island or well-watered land, or dry ground in the marsh". At c.1175 Eye was written as 'Eia'. Moreton is from the Old English 'mōr' with 'tūn' for "farmstead in moorland or marshy ground". Ashton is from the Old English from 'æsc' with 'tūn' for "farmstead where ash trees grow", and written as 'Estune' in the Domesday Book.Mills, Anthony David (2003); A Dictionary of British Place Names, Oxford University Press, revised edition (2011), pp. 21, 181, 333.Ekwall, Eilert (1936); The Concise Oxfordshire Dictionary of English Place-names, Oxford University Press, 4th ed. (1960), pp. 16, 171, 543. "Eye, Moreton and Ashton", Key to English Place-Names, nottingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 6 March 2020

Ashton, the only one of the three parish settlements listed in the Domesday Book, was in the Hundred of Leominster and the county of Herefordshire, and was under a number of manors estimated at 20.9 households, with 224 villagers, 81 smallholders, 13 slaves, 12 female slaves, six priests, and a further 20 occupants. Ploughlands comprised 29 lord's and 201 men's plough teams. Manorial assets included 60 further lord's lands, woodland of 6.3 leagues and eight mills. In 1066 Queen Edith held the manorial lordship, which in 1086 was transferred to tenant-in-chief and king William I.

A 12th-century priory of canons at Eye had been originally founded at Shobdon in 1140 by Oliver de Merlylond, steward to Hugh de Mortimer. The manor of Eye during the 13th-century reign of Henry III was owned by the Abbot of Reading, under whom Walter de Eye was lord of the manor. It remained in the De Eye family until the 15th-century reign of Henry VI, when it passed by marriage to John Blount. After being in the Blount family for five or six generation, Walter Blount mortgaged the manor, which was later sold to a servant of Baron Coventry, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. The manor was eventually sold to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who was entrusted by Queen Elizabeth with the custody of Mary, Queen of Scots, and deputed to observe the Earl of Essex. Eye remained in the Gorges' family until the end of the 18th century, during which, between 1754 and 1761 Richard Gorges became MP for Leominster. The manor was sold in 1787 by Richard Gorges' son to Thomas Harley, son to the 3rd Earl of Oxford, who also bought the Berrington estate in 1775.History, Topography, and Directory, of Herefordshire, pp.76, 77

19th to 21st century In the 19th century the joint township of Eye with Luston was listed under the parish of Eye, with Moreton-cum-Ashton as a further united township within the parish; later Moreton and Ashton with Eye became a joint township and a civil parish. The parish lay between two Ludlow to Leominster turnpike roads. The Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway ran through the parish, its station at the west from Eye village. The route of the 18th-century Stourport and Leominster Canal passed through the parish, and flowed through Moreton-cum-Ashton and along the western edge of the Berrington Hall estate. The canal route had been surveyed by Thomas Dadford Jr. in 1789, was built for an estimated £83,000, and was operating by 1793. Of the three canal tunnels was one at Putnall Hill, at the north-west of the parish on today's Tunnel Lane. The canal closed in 1848 after it was sold to the Shrewsbury and Herefordshire Railway Company for £12,000. Ludlow was the post town for Eye, Leominster that for Luston. In 1858 the village of Eye was described as comprising the church, vicarage, and farm and the railway station. The same year Ashton comprised two "respectable" farm houses, a blacksmith's and wheelwright's shop, dispersed cottages, and "the mound of Castle Tump" camp to the north. Moreton consisted of a farm house, a school building which included girls' classes in sewing and knitting and which was built by Lady Rodney in 1855, and "several" cottages. Occupations and residencies in Eye parish in 1858 included eleven farmers. At the Berrington Hall estate lived Lord Rodney, and his gamekeeper and head gamekeeper, and his farm bailiff. At Eye village was the station master. At Moreton was a shoemaker, the mistress of a free school, and the master of the free school who was also the parish clerk and collector of taxes. At Ashton was a blacksmith & agricultural implement makerThe National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)Kelly's Directory of Herefordshire (1909), pp.61, 62The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5"The Leominster and Stourport canal", Herefordshire Through Time, Herefordshire Council. Retrieved 9 March 2020

The parish church, Ss Peter and Paul, in Eye village, was described as "a plain building of stone in the gothic style", and included a tower with six bells and a clock, a Rodney chapel divided from the chancel by carved oak screens, and two altar tombs "believed to belong to the Cornewall family", one with the recumbent effigy of a knight, the other with effigies of a knight and his lady. Recorded memorials in the church included a stained glass window to Sarah (died 1 October 1882), the wife to the 6th Baron Rodney, and a wall memorial to Thomas Harley (1730 – 1804), Lord Mayor of London and MP. Fixtures and fittings include a Jacobean pulpit, a Norman font, and an 1887 organ. The church was restored in 1874 by William Chick of Hereford for £3,000. The ecclesiastical parish living was a vicarage, an office supported by tithes and glebe, with vicarage house and glebe—an area of land used to support a parish priest—in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and in rural deanery of Leominster and the archdeaconry and Diocese of Hereford. The vicarage house was the former manor house built in 1680 by Ferdinando Gorges, the grandson of Ferdinando Gorges. The parish register dates to 1573.

At Eye village the parish room, "an iron building", was recorded next to the railway station, and a Moravian Mission was in existence. At Luston was a Wesleyan chapel which was built in 1862. Berrington Hall in 1868 was the seat of George Bridges Harley Dennett Rodney, 7th Baron Rodney, and in 1909, that of Frederick Cawley, 1st Baron Cawley, and was described as "a mansion of stone beautifully situated in a well-wooded park of 400 acres". In 1909, in Nordan (hamlet) at the south of the Luston part of Eye parish, is recorded Nordan Hall, a "mansion of brick, pleasantly situated on the summit of the hill... with a fine prospect over the vale of Leominster", the residence of Major (later Lt-Colonel) James Gurwood King-King DSO, a veteran of the North-West Frontier and Boer War."The Distinguished Service Order", The VC and DSO, Volume-II, p.174, lib.militaryarchive.co.uk. Retrieved 8 March 2020"King-King James Gurwood, Major", Angloboerwar.com. Retrieved 8 March 2020 In 1868 the parish children's school was at Eye village; by 1909 the parish school was a Public Elementary School at Moreton, which had been built in 1906 to accommodate 140 children, and at the time attended by 88. At The Broad, a hamlet at the extreme south of the Luston part of the parish, was the parish post office.

The parish' principal landowners were Sir Frederick Cawley, William Kevill-Davies of Croft Castle, and James Gurwood King-King. Lords of the manors were Sir Frederick Cawley at Eye and William Kevill-Davies at Luston. Population in Eye in 1851 was 309, and in 1891 was 315 in Eye and 694 in Luston. Population in 1901 was 315 in the Eye, Moreton and Ashton township, 369 in Luston, and 684 in the ecclesiastical parish. Parish area in 1851 was , and in 1894 was and that of the Luston part being . Eye, Moreton and Ashton township area in 1909 was of land and of water, and at Luston, . The land was clayey over a subsoil of part gravel and part peat, on which the chief crops grown were wheat, beans, hops and apples. Much land at Luston land was given to hop-grounds and orchards, and there existed a sandstone quarry which supplied stone for local building.

In Eye parish in 1909, residents included Sir Frederick Cawley, who was also a member of the Reform and National Liberal clubs in London, and the parish vicar. Commercial trades and occupations in the parish included seven farmers, one of whom was also a hop grower, the farm bailiff and the gardener to Sir Frederick Cawley, a cowkeeper, a blacksmith, a coal merchant and a coal & lime merchant at the railway station, a shopkeeper, a carpenter, a house painter, and a boot & shoe maker who was also a carrier (transporter of trade goods, with sometimes people, between different settlements). Resident at Luston was Major James Gurwood King-King, while trades and occupations included one cottage farmer and eight farmers one of whom was also a hop grower, and an assistant overseer of the poor. There were two market gardeners of the same family, six cow keepers, two castrators of the same family, a carpenter & wheelwright, a blacksmith, a dressmaker, a shoemaker, a timber merchant who ran a sawmill, a shopkeeper & postmistress, a monthly nurse, the licensee of The Balance Inn, and the sanitary inspector to Leominster Rural District Council. At The Broad was a farmer and two jobbing gardeners.

In 2019, three metal detectorists and a coin dealer were convicted at Worcester Crown Court of "theft, conspiracy to conceal criminal property and conspiracy to convert criminal property" of an estimated worth of £3m, relating to a hoard discovered at Eye. The treasure trove was possibly from the 878-79 Great Viking Army. It included a "ninth century gold ring, a dragon's head bracelet, a silver ingot, a crystal rock pendant dating to the fifth century and up to 300 coins, some dating to the reign of King Alfred", with some coins valued at £50,000 each. At the time of the court case and the police investigation, described as of "national significance", only about 10% of the coins had been recovered."Herefordshire treasure theft sentencing", West Mercia Police, 22 November 2019. Retrieved 8 March 2020"British metal detectorists sentenced for stealing Saxon and Viking hoard worth £3m", Apollo, 22 November 2019. Retrieved 8 March 2020"Three men jailed after stealing a Viking hoard worth £3 million", ITV News, 22 November 2019. Retrieved 8 March 2020

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