Carrying on from the Oswestry post, I have found that Hereford feels like it is in Wales. Theres a Welsh centre but its for members only so I can’t say if it’s welsh speaking or not. Also some street names are Welsh only. Come to think of it, Im not sure where the border is. I guess at the river Wye.
Ah, very near my corner of the world! The border is a little further south than the river now, although at one time the area between the Severn and the Wye was indeed Wales and was known as Ergyng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergyng (or Archenfield in English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archenfield ).
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To be honest, I think of Hereford as Wales and I admit to being a little clueless about where the border is.
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) border
Ha! I was properly clueless then 
Oooo my neck of the woods is on there (Merthyr)
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Mine isn’t actually shown (Monmouth), but it’s due South of Hereford where the grey line that comes down from Hereford (i.e. the river Wye) goes under the A40 - that’s how close to the border I lived!
I always assumed the name was from Welsh hir ffordd - but there are those who say ‘here’ is from the old english for army. Pity, because hir ffordd makes a nice pairing with ber ffordd (Burford).
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Strangely, the border only seems to have those massive celebratory signs on the M4, M48 and A40 (I think). I love the BBC Sesh skit on this 
Although I think that there are competing Wales/England signs almost on every corner somewhere on the Mid Wales border as you skirt around farm fields.
Sadly, I’ve found that many people in Hereford are not lovers of the Welsh…doesn’t include me and I was born there…but perhaps that is why I’m finding Welsh so tough…negative vibes when I was about 80 years younger than I am now…who can tell. At least Monmouthshire is back where it should be, but there seems opposition to calling it Gwent.
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I grew up in Mid Powys, we often went to Hereford for shopping, catching a train (anywhere not Swansea or Shrewsbury!) visiting the hospital, a good choral evensong, to see a film less than 6 months after it came out etc. There was a kind of hostility of some who seemed to not like us Welsh using the nearest city to us. Having said that there are also many nice people in Hereford too!
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I have always considered the true Welsh border to be somewhere east of the A49 near Ross, running due north to the natural borderbetween the English Midlands and the Welsh Marches - the Clee Hills. There’s nothing really English about Leominster, it’s much easier to whizz straight down to Cardiff (70 miles) than spend longer than that travelling the 45 miles to Birmingham. But if anyone really is in any doubt about which nation Henffordd Llanllienni and Llwydlo belong to, they should pop down to the southbound platform of each of those town’s railway stations on matchdays at Six Nations time and observe the mass of red shirts and listen to the chorus of ‘Hymns And Arias’ with not one single white shirt in sight!
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Actually Louis, the English word Hereford is from the Anglo Saxon ‘army river crossing’ , think of Herford in Germany with the same etymology: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herford
But it certainly doesn’t stop the place being better connected with destinations in Wales and less than an hour from the National Capital, and on a main north south Wales road, the A49 (which some would argue is a much quicker north to south road than the A470. England is cut off from all but the eastern areas of Herefordshire and indeed travellingeast from Hereford to Ledbury or Leominster to Bromyard does feel, somehow that you’ve crossed into another country!
I seriously think as they are the Welsh Marches (not the English Marches) then they should constitutionally be part of the Principality and send AMs to the Senedd
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