Cusop

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Cusop
Cusop shown within Herefordshire
Population	300 (approx.)
OS grid reference	SO2341
Unitary authority	Herefordshire
Ceremonial county	Herefordshire
Region	West Midlands
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	HEREFORD
Postcode district	HR3
Dialling code	01497
Police	West Mercia
Fire	Hereford and Worcester
Ambulance	West Midlands
European Parliament	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Hereford
List of places: UK • England • Herefordshire

Coordinates: 52°04′N 3°01′W / 52.06, -3.02

Cusop is an English Victorian village that lies next to the world-famous book town of Hay-on-Wye. It is reached by driving out of Hay towards Bredwardine, and turning right into Cusop Dingle, locally known as 'Millionaire's Row', because of the large, Victorian houses which line the route up to Offa's Dyke Path, one of the popular walking tracks in the West of England.

Once documented as the last place in England in which fairies were seen, the Dingle is a single track road running alongside the Dulas Brook (forming the border between Wales and England) into the foothills of the Black Mountains. With a multitude of waterfalls, the Dulas Brook is home to trout, otter and kingfishers.

Cusop was home to the poisoner Herbert Rowse Armstrong, the only English solicitor ever hanged for murder, and the grave of his wife Katharine is in the parish churchyard. His former home, originally Mayfield but now The Mantles, is currently owned by Martin Beales, a solicitor working in Armstrong's old office in Hay. Beales believes that Armstrong was innocent and has published a book arguing his case.^[1]

The writer L.T.C. Rolt lived here between 1914 and 1922, in a house then known as Radnor View, in a development locally called "the Forty Acres". Spending his early boyhood here, he went on to co-found the Inland Waterways Association and the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society, and to write many books on transport, engineering biography and industrial archaeology.