The subject-matter of this city has unconsciously led us to introduce Tewkesbury and Chichester. Having gone so far we cannot close without first drawing attention to the existence of three other cities that prominently stand out in this same county of Gloucestershire. They are Cheltenham, the home of the famous public school; Tewkesbury, where the decisive battle of the Roses was fought; and Bristol, the great port situated near the mouth of the Severn, the river on the banks of which lies this ancient cathedral city of Gloucester. Hereford Hereford. ("Doomsday Book.") On the borders of Wales is Herefordshire, and almost in the centre of the county is its ancient capital, Hereford. A Roman station is supposed to have been in the neighbourhood, under the name of Ariconium, which is considered to be identical with the present Kenchester. The present name of Hereford is derived from the pure Saxon. Like Oxford, it had no bridges at first. As the river had to be crossed, the shallowest part was chosen. This consideration probably determined the site of Hereford to be upon the left bank of the river Wye, and the pass over it was called by the Saxons, Here-ford, or "Military ford." We glean little information of this place till the seventh century. An episcopal see is stated to have existed in this place before the invasion of Britain by the Saxons. From this uncertainty we arrive at something more definite, which took place in 655. Oswy, then King of Mercia, in that year made Hereford part of the diocese of Lichfield, which already wielded jurisdiction over the whole of the kingdom of Mercia. A few years later it was decided by a synod held here under the presidency of Theodore, then Archbishop of Canterbury, in 673, to make a division of the diocese of Lichfield. Very naturally Wilford, then bishop of that see, refused to recognise the decree, and for this piece of contumacy was subsequently deprived of part of his diocese. His successor, Sexulph, however, was more amenable, and with his consent Hereford was detached from Lichfield and restored to its original independence as a separate diocese. Putta was straightway translated from Rochester See to become the first bishop of Hereford in 680. This instance is one of many such in the history of the Church. The shuffling of dioceses, the enlargement of one at the expense of another, whether from motives of malice or a sense of right distribution, occurs usually in the early years of Christianity in England, and also at the general winding up of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII.