Introduction

The next event was the Norman Conquest and four Dilwyn settlements appeared in the Domesday Book. In two entries it is spelt DILUEN. In the others it appears as DILGE! Five other settlements in the modern parish are also listed under names that they still have today, several dignified by the suffix 'Court'. Under the Normans, the first church was built. Its roof line can still be seen on the wall of the tower. The present Church, dedicated to St Mary, dates from the end of the 13th Century.

One of the battles of the War of the Roses was fought at Mortimers Cross, just to the north of Dilwyn, in 1461 with the Yorkists winning under the leadership of Edward, Earl of March. Later that year he was crowned King of England (as Edward IV).

The agricultural prosperity came to an end as the Black Death swept Europe and North Herefordshire. The population was cut by more than half in the 1340s and 50s. There was some recovery by 1558 when Dilwyn's first parish register was started with a marriage. Further innovations followed, but the worst experience was the Civil War. A Royalist Colonel Symmonds kept a diary and described building over the gate to the churchyard. The village submitted a hefty bill afterwards for the losses of corn and cattle to the passing armies. Taxation, always a well recorded feature of life, reaped its harvest in Dilwyn as well as elsewhere. When the time came to re-organise the tythe system, one of the earliest maps of the village was drawn.