Explore Hereford's secret history through a fascinating selection of stories, facts and photographs.

Most visitors know all about Kansas City’s barbecue, jazz, and football success, but there are hidden gems and wild pieces of trivia around every turn in Missouri’s largest city. Is the giant Hereford bull anatomically correct? Can a seed that’s been to outer space still grow into a normal tree? And who really killed President William Henry Harrison? You’ll find answers to the questions you didn’t know you had in Secret Kansas City: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. Learn why three completely unrelated groups have chosen Kansas City as the center of the world and the place you want to be when the world ends. Between these covers, you’ll also find castles, a horse buried in a cul-de-sac, a ghost who likes a good laugh, and the world’s longest snake. This is not a tour guide for outsiders; it’s a scavenger hunt—insiders only, please. Longtime Kansas Citian Anne Kniggendorf is at your service to bolster your love and boost your respect for this middle-of-the-map city. With her eye for the odd leading the way, you’ll have a great time discovering Kansas City.

The Use of Hereford, a local variation of the Roman rite, was one of the diocesan liturgies of medieval England before their abolition and replacement by the Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Unlike the widespread Use of Sarum, the Use of Hereford was confined principally to its diocese, which helped to maintain its individuality until the Reformation. This study seeks to catalogue and evaluate all the known surviving sources of the Use of Hereford, with particular reference to the missals and gradual, which so far have received little attention. In addition to these a variety of other material has been examined, including a number of little-known or unknown important fragments of early Hereford service-books dismembered at the Reformation and now hidden away as binding or other scrap in libraries and record offices.

"Secret Journeys of a Lifetime" presents 500 off-the-beaten-path travel destinations around the world that are notable for their vistas, wildlife, and historical and cultural significance.

A compelling study of a "best-seller" from the Middle Ages

Merrily Watkins, parish priest, single mother, and exorcist, works for the Diocese of Hereford in a remote village on the border of England and Wales. Cozy? Not in the least. The elite warriors of the Hereford-based SAS know all about pain and the enduring of it. Syd Spicer, ex-SAS trooper, has found himself back in the Regiment, this time as its chaplain, responsible for the spiritual welfare of the hardest men in or out of uniform. Faced with a case which would normally be passed discreetly to Hereford diocesan exorcist Merrily Watkins, Spicer is forced, for security reasons, to try and handle it himself, and is coming close to a breakdown. Meanwhile, the scattered communities along the Welsh border have their own crisis. With recession biting deep, urban crime has spilled into the countryside and old barbaric evils are revived. When a wealthy landowner is hacked to death in his own farmyard, the senior investigating officer DI Frannie Bliss is caught in the backlash, his private life in danger of exposure. With the framework of her own world beginning to crack, Merrily is persuaded to venture into areas where neither a priest nor a woman is welcome to unearth secrets linked with the border's pagan past—secrets which she knows can never be disclosed.

The Use of Hereford, a local variation of the Roman rite, was one of the diocesan liturgies of medieval England before their abolition and replacement by the Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Unlike the widespread Use of Sarum, the Use of Hereford was confined principally to its diocese, which helped to maintain its individuality until the Reformation. This study seeks to catalogue and evaluate all the known surviving sources of the Use of Hereford, with particular reference to the missals and gradual, which so far have received little attention. In addition to these a variety of other material has been examined, including a number of little-known or unknown important fragments of early Hereford service-books dismembered at the Reformation and now hidden away as binding or other scrap in libraries and record offices. This is the fullest examination of Hereford liturgical sources ever undertaken and may stimulate similar and much-needed studies of other diocesan uses, in particular Sarum and York. As well as describing in detail the various manuscript sources, the rare single edition printed Hereford texts, the missals and breviaries, are also discussed. Unlike books of the Sarum and York rites, these ’one-offs’ were never revised and reissued. In addition to the examination of these sources, William Smith discusses the possible origins of the rite and provides an analysis of the Hereford liturgical calendar, of the festa, including those of the cathedral’s patron St Ethelbert and the no less famous St Thomas Cantilupe, that helped to make Hereford use so distinctive.