The Doward
area in the parish of Whitchurch, Herefordshire, England, UK

The Doward (Welsh: Deuarth Fach, lit. "two small hills"), is an area in the parish of Whitchurch in south Herefordshire, England, consisting of the hills of Little Doward and Great Doward and extensive woodland. It is within the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, on the border with Monmouthshire, Wales. The area, about 3 miles (4.8 km) north-east of Monmouth, is shrouded in legend and King Arthur's Cave is in the vicinity.
Geography
The Doward is located in the far south of Herefordshire, just across the border from Wales. In 1854, the district was reported to be of 254 acres. Little Doward is located about 3 miles (4.8 km) from Monmouth, just to the southeast of Ganarew and just to the west of Symonds Yat. The River Wye flows through the area forming the eastern and southern boundary of the area, and the A40 road forming its western boundary. It is heavily forested with several cave formations. The landscape is mountainous common, sprinkled with rock outcrops.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Doward” as area in the parish of Whitchurch, Herefordshire, England, UK. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as area in the parish of Whitchurch, Herefordshire, England, UK. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7730776. Authority coordinates are 51.843, -2.670. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1854.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Doward” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.