Richard's Castle, Herefordshire

 

Richard's Castle - from the base of the Motte

The masonry dates from c.1150

I trace my love of History to the Castle. Many of our family holidays meandered from one fortress to another as we crawled to our destination. Since my teenage years, I have not only visited castle after castle, but collected guidebooks and larger tomes on the topic. I have nearly 50 of the latter and scores of the former. A visit to a castle - whether it be a grass motte or a splendid building (often heavily restored) such as Dover or Warwick - still occasions excitement. On our most recent break-out from this appalling 'lock-down', we drove up a long, minor lane to Richard's Castle, both the name of the present village and its venerable, but now over-grown, fortress. We had to push through banks and rows of stinging nettles, along a very narrow path, to traverse the bailey and then climb some very uneven, oddly-shaped stones to get to the top of the motte. Once there, the view to the South was inspiring, but all around there was vegetative decay. Sic transit gloria mundi. 

The motte and bailey and the nearby church

The castle was one of four built before the Norman Conquest (at least, four that we know about). The others were Robert's Castle at Clavering in Essex - there is  now only rough, rectangular-shaped earthworks, with some remnants of a surrounding ditch; Hereford Castle, built c.1048, which was later superseded by a stone fortress; and Ewyas Harold, where the 50-foot high motte can still be seen.

        Robert's Castle, Clavering     Ewyas Harold Castle, Herefordshire

 

Richard fitz Scrob was granted land around Auretone (now Overton) by Edward the Confessor, and c.1050 founded the castle that takes his name. It is referred to in Domesday Book as castello Avreton. Apparently, castles were also built at nearby Burford and Homme, creating a strong military line, but both became disused and were abandoned.

Part of Richard's Castle bailey

I have always found motte and bailey castles the most romantic, even if they have had later stonework thrust upon and around them. Those that stick in my mind of the latter include Carisbrooke, Berkhamsted, Tamworth and the double mottes at Lewes and Lincoln. Those that have minimal, if any, stonework existing I have visited include massive Thetford, Marlborough, Leicester and Wallingford; and tiny ones such as at Seckington and Abinger,  When excavations were carried out at Richard's Castle in 1962-4, the motte which was famous for its height proved to contain, in its upper five metres, the basement and part of the first floor of a buried octagonal tower, the original mound being of fairly standard size. The tower closest to the motte was found to include an inserted dovecote.

Looking down from the motte

There are exposed fragments of curtain wall and towers around the north and east sides of the bailey. Both the motte and the bailey are encircled by a huge dry ditch averaging 6m in depth. Around the remaining north, north west and west sides of the bailey is a well-defined outer rampart. There is an original causewayed entrance crossing the bailey ditch; fragmentary walling flanking the causeway represents the remains of a stone gatehouse. To the east of the bailey, joined onto its outer rampart, are the remains of an extensive outer enclosure designed to protect the church and the small borough.

What it might have looked like in its heyday!

Terry Wardle has a useful Appendix in his book on the possible first castle in England, where he comments on pre-Conquest castles. He includes Burghill, near Hereford; Brinsop, near Hereford; Hereford itself; Richard's Castle; Ewyas Harold; and Clavering. His thesis is that Burghill is England's first castle, being mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which says that in early September 1051 the French had built a castle. All that remains are traces of the bailey ditch and bank and the moat around the site of the motte. The very experienced Herefordshire castle studies expert, Ron Shoesmith, is not convinced by Wardle's arguments.

Useful Source material:

Ella S. Armitage - The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles (John Murray, 1912)

Derek Renn - Norman Castles in Britain (John Baker, Humanities Press, 2nd ed. 1973

M. W. Thompson - The Rise of the Castle (Cambridge University Press, 1991)

Terry Wardle - England's First Castle ( The History Press, 2009)

Philip Hume - The Welsh Marcher Lordships. I: Central & North (Logaston Press, 2021)