The Ross Gazette is the weekly newspaper for Ross-on-Wye and the surrounding area in Herefordshire, England. First published in January 1867, it has reported on life in the town and its district for more than 150 years, making it one of the oldest continuously published local newspapers in the West Midlands. Owned by Tindle Newspapers, it is the only independently owned newspaper still running in Herefordshire. Published on Wednesdays from its office on Broad Street in Ross-on-Wye, it combines a traditional weekly print edition with the rossgazette.com website. Its archive — 150 years of news and photographs — has been digitised with Heritage Lottery Fund support and made freely available to the public.
The first edition, January 1867
The very first Ross Gazette was printed on 2 January 1867 and published on 3 January 1867, priced at one penny. The town's residents, who had very limited access to local news as well as national events, were keen to get hold of the new paper: many people queued outside the newspaper's offices to make sure of a copy, and by noon on the Friday of that week all 1,000 copies printed had been sold.
The first edition carried a statement of editorial principle that the paper says continues to guide it: that it wished studiously to avoid the error too often pursued by newspaper proprietors of endeavouring to force their own political or religious opinions upon their readers. Giving an unbiased account of the events of the area around Ross-on-Wye was set out as the paper's purpose from the very beginning.
A Victorian foundation
The Gazette was born in the Victorian era — Queen Victoria had been on the throne since 1837, and 1867 was also the year of the first meeting of the Conference of Trades that became the Trades Union Congress, and of the formation of the National Society for Women's Suffrage after John Stuart Mill's motion for women's votes was rejected by the Commons. In its early years the paper also appeared under the extended title The Ross Gazette, Newent and Mitcheldean Chronicle, reflecting its coverage of the Forest of Dean towns across the county border in Gloucestershire.
Before social media, the internet, radio or television, the people of Ross relied on local newspapers as their only way of keeping abreast of the news. To meet this need the Gazette would bring out special editions when the occasion warranted it: at the outbreak of war in 1914, the paper printed hourly news sheets which were quickly bought up by the crowds thronging the town's market.
Reporting two world wars
The Gazette's archive records the town's experience of both world wars in detail. During the First World War the paper listed local men serving in the forces — its 17 September 1914 edition, for example, recorded Ross men joining the Herefordshire Regiment — and reported casualties, home-front fundraising and the rhythms of wartime life. The paper's bound volumes form a unique record of how a small English country town lived through the conflicts of the 20th century, from recruiting rallies and rationing to the homecomings and the memorials.
The archive's value as a historical record is one reason the paper's later digitisation project attracted national lottery funding: 150 years of news stories and photographs reflecting the life and fortunes of a country town, preserved nowhere else in such completeness.
From broadsheet to modern weekly
For much of its life the Gazette was a broadsheet — so large, as general manager Charlotte Reynolds recalled, that as a little girl she had to sit on the floor to read it because it was too big to hold in her lap. Her family had always bought the newspaper, and she continued the tradition when she moved home, later joining the paper's staff and rising to become its general manager. Her story illustrates the paper's deep roots in local families: supported by local families for generations, as the paper's own description puts it, appealing to all age groups.
Today the paper is published weekly on Wednesdays, with a Monday copy deadline. It carries news, sport, letters, columns and a what's-on guide, and its office is based above the Sue Ryder charity shop on Broad Street in the centre of Ross-on-Wye.
Tindle ownership
The Gazette is owned by Tindle Newspapers, the family-owned regional press group founded by Sir Ray Tindle. Tindle built his empire from a single purchase — the Balham & Tooting Gazette, bought with his £300 demob payment after wartime service in the Far East — into one of Britain's largest independent weekly newspaper groups, numbering more than 200 titles at its height and known for rescuing historic local papers threatened with closure. The Gazette fits squarely within that philosophy: a historic, community-rooted weekly sustained by an owner committed to ultra-local journalism.
Sir Ray stepped down as chairman at 90, handing the chairmanship to his son Owen Tindle while remaining as president, and died in April 2022 aged 95. In March 2026 the Tindle newspaper assets were sold to a joint venture between Iliffe Media Group and the Fowler family; the new owners said they would prioritise building digital subscriptions for the former Tindle titles while preserving their local journalism output.
The 150th anniversary
In January 2017 the Gazette marked its 150th anniversary by reprinting its first-ever edition — the edition of 3 January 1867 — as a memento for readers. The paper also ran a 150th anniversary logo competition in conjunction with primary schools across its patch; the winning design, created by schoolboy Eben Harris, was used on the newspaper's front page for the whole of 2017.
Editor Jo Scrivin, who had joined the paper in 2000, said she was proud to be the editor of such a long-standing local newspaper still at the heart of the community. General manager Charlotte Reynolds said she was immensely proud to manage the paper during such a special year, thanked readers and advertisers for their continued support, and described the Gazette as an established part of Ross-on-Wye. Looking through the paper's archive, she said, it was a joy to spot herself in its pages — in school photographs or as part of a local drama group — proof, as she put it, that local newspapers are with you all the way.
Digitising 150 years: the archive project
In January 2018 the Gazette was awarded £70,600 by the Heritage Lottery Fund for the Ross Gazette Archive Project, to digitise its entire 150-year archive of newspapers and photographs. The project was run with partners Herefordshire Libraries, the history society Herefordshire Lore and the youth organisation mediaSHYPP, and included an intergenerational reminiscence initiative, a primary-school learning programme, a film project and work with local history groups.
The digitised archive was made publicly available free of charge on the Herefordshire History website, opening the paper's record of Ross-on-Wye to a far wider audience and preserving it for future generations. The head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in the West Midlands said the fund was delighted to support the Gazette in celebrating its heritage and preserving its significant archive of news stories and photographs digitally. The project relied heavily on volunteers in Ross-on-Wye, and the paper reported it going from strength to strength nearly two years after launch, with members of the public bringing in remarkable material — including photographs of elephants walking through the streets of Ross.
Coverage and distribution
The Gazette is distributed throughout Ross-on-Wye and the surrounding district, including Cinderford, Hereford, Monmouth and Newent — straddling the Herefordshire–Gloucestershire–Monmouthshire borders at the edge of the Wye Valley and the Forest of Dean. Its patch takes in market-town life, village communities, farming, tourism and the small businesses of the area.
The paper's pages carry the full range of weekly local journalism: council and planning news, court reports, school and community events, sport, letters from readers, and listings of what's on across the district. Its website, rossgazette.com, extends that coverage online with regularly updated local news.
Ross-on-Wye, the town it serves
Ross-on-Wye is a historic market town on the River Wye, often described as the jewel in the crown of Herefordshire and widely regarded as the birthplace of British tourism — the Wye Tour pioneered here in the 18th century, inspired by the picturesque landscape and the philanthropy of John Kyrle, the celebrated Man of Ross. The town's market days on Thursdays and Saturdays, its independent shops, its carnival and its riverside concerts and regattas all feature regularly in the Gazette's pages.
With easy access to the Midlands and South Wales, Ross has grown as a centre for housing and light industry while retaining its market-town character. The paper describes the town as a thriving, forward-thinking place that needs a local newspaper such as the Gazette to reflect the life within it — a role the title has filled, in its own account, for almost 160 years.
A living record
After more than a century and a half in print, the Ross Gazette remains what its first edition promised to be: the town's weekly newspaper, at the heart of the local community, supported by local families for generations. From the penny paper queued for in January 1867 to the digitised archive freely available online today, it has chronicled Ross-on-Wye through Victorian prosperity, two world wars, the coming of the motorway age and the digital revolution. As the only independently owned newspaper still running in Herefordshire, it carries a distinction few local titles can claim — and a responsibility to the town's history that its archive project has now secured for the generations to come.
