Hereford
[key], town, Herefordshire, W central England. Hereford is a cattle-market
town, from which the cattle breed takes its name. Industries include food
processing, brewing, and light manufacturing. At its cathedral, which
probably dates from the 11th cent., the Festival of the Three Choirs is held
every third year. (In the other years it is held at Gloucester or Worcester.) The nearby White Cross
commemorates the termination of the great plague in the mid-14th cent. A
grammar school was founded there in the 14th cent. Hereford was the
birthplace of Nell Gwyn, mistress of
Charles II, and the stage actor David Garrick.
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