Last week as D was on holiday we went to Herefordshire for a few nights.
It was raining heavily on the journey on Thursday - Timothy in the car!
Friday it rained heavily on and off most of the day but luckily yesterday was dry and sunny so we decided to visit Richard's Castle which has a motte and bailey castle (possibly the earliest in the country) and a historic church.
The castle, which gives the village its name, pre-dates the Conquest by about 16 years but it was thoroughly Norman. Edward the Confessor encouraged the settlement of his Norman kinsmen and friends in Herefordshire and gave them gifts of land. This land was granted to Richard FitzScrob who built a castle on it around c1050 and sited his keep on the hilltop. In 1086 it was held by his son Osbern FitzRichard and remained in the family for several generations until it passed by marriage to the family of Talbot under the overlordship of the Mortimers. Later it came into the possession of the Salweys where it remained for 370 years.
Leland's survey 1540 report reports the castle was mainly standing but ruinous and later it housed a farm and its buildings. A ditch remains and remains of a gatehouse, curtain wall and keep.
When you reach the village the church is signposted and there is a small area where you can park.
View on the walk to the church.
St Bartholomew's Church with its detached tower is situated in the outer bailey - I'll go back to the church in another post and I actually plucked up courage this time to go inside so there will be some interior photos too.
The views were stunning from the churchyard.
Luckily I had done some research into how to find the motte and bailey. You walk past the church into the area of churchyard where there are more recent graves and at the top is a gate and path leading to the castle.
Ditch surrounding the castle.
Remains of the gatehouse.
More of those stunning views.
A well
Here you can see parts of the keep.
In the background is part of what remains of the curtain wall. In the 13th century the original pallisade surrounding the castle was replaced by a stone curtain wall - parts of which can still be seen. One fragment is more or less its full original height of 8 metres. A wall walk (raised platform along the inside of the curtain wall) linked the towers which was important for the defence of the castle.
The square holes you can hopefully spot in the wall were probably post holes for supporting wooden scaffolding used to build the wall.
Remains of the Keep
The original tower would have been made of wood but at the end of the 12th century it was replaced by a stone octagonal keep (octagonal keeps are rare in Britain) made of finely dressed limestone. The keep was 13 metres across with walls 3 metres thick at the base and each of the 8 sides was 6 metres long.
It originally would have had four floors - a basement, first floor which may have been used as a chapel as part of a portable altar along with 13th and 14th century pottery have been found, a 2nd floor perhaps used as accommodation by the castle owner and then the battlements. Acess to the keep was probably from the curtain wall.
I took one look at the crumbling steps and decided not to attempt to go up due to my "past their use by date" knees but B and D did go up to the top.
Curtain wall remains. The ruins had a wonderful sense of place and were quite atmospheric but it was time to leave.
A few photos taken by D.
From the top of the Keep with me far below!
View from keep
Looking down - perhaps it was just as well I didn't attempt to go up!
Next post a look around St Bartholomew's church and churchyard.
*D Photos taken by my son with the Canon SX50HS bridge camera
Rest of photos taken by me with the Pansonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera