A SENIOR member of the royal family will be visiting Herefordshire in the coming days.

The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Edward, will be paying a visit to three organisations in the county, according to the official Royal Diary.

The Prince will kick off his visit to the county with a visit to Hereford university project NMITE Hereford, on October 1.

He will then move on to the Herefordshire Veteran Support Centre, in Hereford's West Street, before heading to his final stop of his tour, Holme Lacy College.

These are official engagements which are not open to the public. Locals are asked not to turn up at the sites on the day.

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Prince Edward's last official appearance in the county was a virtual visit during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when he spoke to Hope Support Services in Ross-on-Wye, a  Herefordshire charity which offers support to people who have a seriously ill relative.

He was said to be particularly impressed with the unique nature of Hope's youth management team and youth advisory team.

Hereford has also played host to other royal visitors in recent years, including King Charles and the Prince and Princess of Wales.

The King, who is a patron of Hereford's Royal National College for the Blind, visited the city in December 2022 to mark the college's 150th anniversary.

The late Queen Elizabeth passed the patronage of the RNC to the then Prince of Wales, who had opened the college’s new Hereford site in 1979, in 1997.

During his visit, the King met students, staff and volunteers and watched a demonstration of blind football at the specialist college.

The Prince and Princess of Wales' visit came in 2023, when the couple paid a visit to Herefordshire charity We Are Farming Minds at Kings Pitt Farm, just south of Hereford, to learn about their work.

The couple also joined children from Madley Primary School's at one of their regular forest school sessions in local woodland.