Almeley  Almeley (pronounced ) is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Almeley Wooton and Upcott. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 601. Almeley is in the west of the county, about northwest of Hereford, southwest of Leominster and from the border with Wales. The village is on the Black and White Village Trail. Much of the present village is built around a triangle of roads, with St Mary's parish church to the south, and on the edge of the built area. East of the church is Almeley Primary School. The village hall is at the eastern point of the triangle. North of the church are The Bells public house and a post office. At one of the road junctions by the church are the war memorial and a small sculpture depicting Almeley Parish. Of historical interest are the Oldcastle (on the north-west side of the village) and Almeley Castle just south of the church. A brook, offering a reliable water supply, runs past both castles. Almeley was awarded "Best Kept Herefordshire Village" in 1990. The Domesday Book of 1086 records Almeley as a manor. Almeley is also recorded in 14th-century Feet of Fines (property transaction records). There is an entry for it in Samuel Lewis' "Topographical Dictionary of England" of 1848. The Church of England parish church of St Mary is largely 14-century and is a Grade I listed building. Almeley is notable as the birthplace of Sir John Oldcastle, a Lollard sympathizer who was eventually executed for treason in 1417; his was the original name given to Shakespeare's character of Falstaff. One of the early Quaker meeting houses is in Almeley Wootton, a hamlet in the parish about north of Almeley village. It was given to the Quakers in 1672 by its owner, Roger Prichard, and is still in use by Quakers today. Two of the Quakers who worshipped there (Roger's son, Edward Prichard, and Edward's brother-in-law, John Eckley) were involved with William Penn in setting up the colony of Pennsylvania in 1682. A third castle is in the hamlet of Woonton in the Parish near The Mere at a place called Hall Mote. The whole parish has physical evidence of shrunken settlement at Woonton, Almeley Wootton, Hopleys Green, Upcott and Logaston, numbering more than 100 buildings.