Much of Hereford's trade with the outside world was carried on the River Wye on barges. The Wye had been used for many years for transporting heavier goods, and stone for Hereford's larger medieval buildings would have been brought up it. Wharves existed in Hereford by the mid 13th century, and acts of parliament for improving the navigation were passed 1661, 1696 and 1727. In the early 1770s exports from the city included timber and cider. Imports included coal and luxury goods, and sometimes, perhaps surprisingly, American grain. The potato was an unfamiliar vegetable, and the newly established Hereford Journal took pains to explain to its readers how to prepare it - boiled and mashed and mixed with flour it could be baked into a tolerable loaf of bread.

Butcher's Row from a watercolour by David Cox. The building in the centre of the picture is now the Old House Museum - the other buildings in the row have been demolished River Wye barges had sails and carried between 18-40 tons. When sail could not be used men hauled the barges. Barge work was dangerous and many men were drowned. Compulsion was used to maintain this essential traffic. In April 1771 Thomas Basset was imprisoned for a month for refusing to navigate a boat down the river.

Road transport was slow and expensive. In 1780 (when the Hereford Journal was alarming the citizens with reports of American warships raiding shipping off the north-east coast of England) the fastest stage coaches took a day and a half to reach London. The fare was one pound and eleven shillings (£1.55p) at a time when a medium size house in Hereford could be rented for around five pounds per annum, and houses with 'four rooms on each floor' for ten. People who couldn’t afford the stage-coach could ride on carrier’s wagons. Every Sunday at midnight Thomas Yeates’ wagon left Hereford for London. Passengers paid just eight shillings (40p) with children sitting on their laps charged at half price. The wagon would be shared with goods bound for the capital - parcels under 12 pounds in weight cost 9 pence (3.75p) and geese, fowls, hares and other game could be sent for the same price. Yeates’ wagons reached the Black Bear in Piccadilly on Thursday evenings.

Communications with the outside world were gradually improved. The River Wye navigation was improved in 1811 by the building of a horse towing path and in 1829 a horse drawn tramway was opened to connect Hereford with the South Wales canal system.

River traffic on the Wye at Hereford. In the early 19th century bargees drank in the Bell Inn in Gwynne Street (then Pipe Lane).

Piggot's Directory for 1830 lists six barge-owners in the town. One of these men, who was also a barge builder, was John Easton. By 1830 Easton had progressed beyond barges. In February 1822, 3,000 people had watched as his first sea-going ship was launched into the Wye - a 47 feet long sloop called the Hereford. More followed, the Champion, the Collinoque, the Paul Pry - the last a steam-powered tug.