Researching Ross on Wye, Herefordshire. (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Tuesday, October 02, 2012, 18:31 (4441 days ago) @ suecar53

Hi again Sue,
as Mint says there seems to be a bit of a blackhole on Tinternet wrt the history of Ross On Wye. Not surprisingly given it's attractive location and the importance of the Old "Wye Tour" and Rev Gilpin etc, there are plenty of "old photos" books about the town which may help you. If you search the usual online sources you'll find them, plus a few reference books which may well help you such as the "Story of Ross" by Heather Hurley who I quoted earlier:
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Logaston Press; 1st edition (1 Nov 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1873827113
ISBN-13: 978-1873827116
Unfortunately for this enquiry my large collection of FoD books doesnt yet extend to Ross, methinks that will change soon....
#

Whereabouts are you ?. Perhaps your local library can help you ?

I ask as I live in West London so 120miles from Ross. However I'm near the main Borough library (within Middlesex), in their reference section they carry a bookcase full of the entire GB set of the old Victorian British History books which are superb, in addition to many other books not just local ones. I also have access to Surrey Libraries, like most counties nowadays Surrey has an excellent searchable stock website. This has enabled me to borrow many excellent books abt Gloucestershire and the Forest, for only a few pence reservation fees to move them to my nearest branch only 4 miles away. Some are quite rare so expensive to buy even secondhand, perhaps not surprisingly many havent been out on loan for years ! In fact I must recommend Surrey libraries above my own Middlesex ones: they have larger stock, they don't appear to have a limit wrt number of renewals which can be done online, and they even send out reminder emails to prevent one accidentally running up overdue fines !!! Like Middlesex librairies they also carry some more general but speciallist(aka expensive!) History reference tomes which are readable within the library.
For example, if you are in the Midlands, I suspect Worcestershire Libraries will carry books abt Ross, given as in recent years Herefordshire & Worcestershire were linked.
Finally, thorough internet searching can be rewarded by finding history/reference books that are readable on-line, particularly it seems from Universities etc in the USA. I'll try to attach a few links later..

# By complete coincidence (honest!) while searching for references to Rev. Gilpin & Ross, I found this website which mentions said book !!
http://www.rosscivic.org.uk/index.php?page=civic_510-William_Gilpin_and_The_Wye_Tour

Perhaps the Ross Civic Society is worth contacting ?. I've often emailed websites "out of the blue" when trying to research my own Family History, I find a polite friendly enquiry often yields great if not fantastic results from nice helpful people.
Which reminds me, did you visit or contact the Ross Museum ?

Hope this helps, Jeff