THE CASTLE AND BARONY OF CLUN, SHROPSHIRE.

THE church, village, and castle of Clun are situated near the centre of a spacious amphitheatre of lofty but fertile hills, the summits and upper slopes of which are covered with young and luxuriant plantations, while in the lower parts are occasionally single trees, chiefly oak, elm, and beech, of vast size and great age, the reliques of an ancient demesne, and still standing out and to be distinguished amidst the denizens of the hedgerows, which, though often of large size, all belong to the period of enclosures and cultivation. Across this rich and smiling land, amidst hamlets, churches, manor-places, farmhouses, and cottages, with frequent orchards and gardens, green pastures and root crops, and waving corn-fields, the river Clun pursues its sinuous course, giving life and fertility to the scene, which, indeed, is throughout imbued with an aspect of peace and—perhaps rather indolent—prosperity.

The ancient forest of Clun covered a large tract of upland, extending, with a radius of about five miles, to the north and west of the seat of the barony. Its border is that of the county of Salop, and runs along the elevated ridge which, from Bishop’s Moat, on the east, to Castell-cefn-fron, on the west, divides that county from Montgomery, and the water-shed of the Clun from that of the Hafren or Upper Severn. From this latter river the ridge is distant about five miles, and the intervening country is mountainous and broken. The natural division is, in part, strengthened by an artificial work, known as Saeson bank, and placed considerably to the west of Offa’s Dyke, which, here very perfect, runs north and south about three miles west of Clun, and thus bisects the forest and the barony. Which of these earthworks is the earlier is doubtful, but probably the Dyke. Connected with the Saeson bank, and at right angles to it, are two short spurs, the age and object of which are not very evident.

The forest was never very thickly wooded in its upper and more exposed parts, but that it was always scantily inhabited is evident from the fact that it contains but one parish church, that of Mainstone, which stands on the very line of the Dyke, about six miles north of Clun, on the edge of a small brook—the Ffridd. From its singular position may be drawn the inference that it is later than the Dyke.

The water-courses of the forest contribute to form four rather considerable streams, which finally unite to become the river Clun, which thence descends eastwards down a deep and rather narrow valley, by Clunton, Clunbury, and Clungunford, to Leintwardine, where, after a course of about twelve miles, it joins the Teme, the river of Ludlow, and of Tenbury.

The Barony of Clun, called also the Honour and the Hundred, was more extensive than the forest, and included lands of a more settled character to the east and south. Obley, Pentrehodre, Hobendrid, Hobbaris, Larkenhope, Eileston, and Manulton, were members of the manor of Clun, which was co-extensive with the Hundred; and in the “Welshery” attached to it were the hamlets of Aderdely and Bickton, Hodicote, and Newcastle. It appears, in the twelfth century, to have contained five vills and sub-manors, the borough town of Clun, and the manor of Tempsett. Clun was also an ecclesiastical centre. Its noble parish church of St. George was set over the chapels of St. Thomas of Clun, St. Mary of Waterden, St. Swithun of Clunbury, St. Mary of Clunton, St. Mary of Opperton, and the chapels of Edgton and Sibdon. The whole were attached to the great abbey of Wenlock. Many of these chapelries have become independent parishes, and the Hundred of Clun has disappeared as a county division, being absorbed in that of Purslow. In 1837, 8,600 acres of the old forest were enclosed by Act of Parliament, and in 1869, 1700 more.

About a furlong below the point at which the collective waters from the forest combine to form the Clun, that stream, there of considerable volume, makes a sharp and sudden bend, in the hollow of which, upon its left or convex bank, is placed the castle. The space thus partially enclosed and protected by the river is about 600 yards in length, and is occupied by a cluster of knolls or tumps of a soft, friable rock, which has been carved and scarped for the purposes of defence, so as to present, with its decomposed and grass-grown surface, much of an artificial aspect. Amongst these knolls stands out one higher and of even a more artificial appearance than the rest. It forms a conical mound, about 40 yards in diameter at its table top, with very steep sides, and in height above its surrounding ditch about 60 feet; and the ditch, again, is about 30 feet above the bed of the river. The ditch covers the mound upon its southern and eastern sides, but to the north and west the slope descends direct to the river level, presenting a very formidable appearance. The more exposed part is further protected by three works in earth, beyond the ditch; of which the larger, to the south-west, is of irregular figure, and about 40 yards deep by 70 yards broad, having four irregular sides, of which the inner is concave, and forms the counterscarp of the main ditch. Towards the river this platform is scarped towards the mound and the adjacent platform; its protection is a ditch, about 7 yards deep by 16 to 18 yards broad. The top is level, save that along the edges of the three outer sides is a narrow bank—a sort of parapet, on which was probably a stockade. At one point, where the platform approaches the mound, is a small spur, as though the ruin of the pier of a bridge, and which was evidently the main entrance to the keep or principal mound. The road to this bridge ascended the platform from the village on the south.

To the east of this is a second platform, of the same height, and about 14 yards deep by 30 yards broad, its larger face being concave, and applied to the main ditch. Its top is level, and has no trace of bank or parapet.

The third earthwork, of no great size, stands to the east of the keep mound, and abuts upon its ditch to the west, and on the river to the north. These two sides are prolonged, and the fork or hollow angle between them is occupied by a depression, formerly a large pool, having a sluice-gate towards the river. Between the bank of this pool and the southern platform is a ditch, which seems to have been used as a hollow way leading to the river front of the mound.

Between the mound and west platform and the river are two lunated patches of meadow about 90 yards deep, the one 70 yards and the other 140 yards long; they were probably employed as a safe pasture in ordinary times for the garrison cattle, which, in case of attack, could readily be taken up the platforms, or driven along the castle ditches into the precincts of the town.

Such are the earthworks as they are now seen, and in general features much, no doubt, as they were seen when the Norman Picot took possession of his dangerous grant. They belong to the class known as burhs, or moated mounds, and date from the ninth or tenth century. By whom they were thrown up, or, rather, carved out, is unknown; but it may safely be asserted that they represent the chief residence of one of those Englishmen who invaded and settled upon the Welsh territory, and whose duty it was to defend the western and often-attacked border of the Mercian kingdom. The occupant of such a position must have been a bold and powerful leader; though whether he lived before or after the formation of Offa’s Dyke is doubtful. Possibly a careful examination of the Saeson bank ridge, where it is crossed by the Dyke, might throw a light upon this point, and the researches should extend to Crugyn or Castle Hill, on Bishop’s Castle racecourse, to Bishop’s Moat, Caer-din, Tomen, Castell-cefn-fron or Bryn Amlwg, and some other camps and tumuli on each side the border. Besides these are others, both camps and tumuli, and a remarkable upright stone or maenhir within the forest, all, no doubt, of British date. It must be borne in mind that Clun, though an exposed part of the Mercian territory, was covered to the north-west and north by the English settlements along the Upper Severn, of which there are ample traces from Kerry to Welshpool, on both sides of the Dyke. Looking at the extension of the barony of Clun, westward of the Dyke, to a natural boundary, it seems probable that the barony was founded when the Dyke was no longer the Mercian border, and the English had pushed their settlements up the valley of the Severn. This also would be more consistent with the figure of the earthworks of Clun and of the adjacent district, which resemble those thrown up by Æthelflæda and Edward the Elder early in the tenth century, and of which Wigmore is a recorded example.

THE CASTLE OF CLUN.

The position and estate of Clun, like those of many similar domains in England and within the Marches, were at once taken possession of by the Norman followers of the Conqueror, and held by Picot de Say as a military fief dependent upon Roger de Montgomery at Shrewsbury. Whether De Say or his immediate successors fortified the mounds with masonry after the manner then coming into use in Normandy, or whether they contented themselves with such defences, probably of timber, as they found ready to hand, is not known, but if they had at once built a keep and walls in the Norman manner, it is exceedingly improbable that no trace of works usually so substantial should even now remain, and still more so that they should have been decayed by the middle of the twelfth century, which is probably the date of the older part of the masonry now standing, and which it will be proper next to describe.

The Keep.—This is a large rectangular tower built on the lower edge and up the eastern slope of the mound, and therein resembling Guildford. Its dimensions are 42 feet north and south by 68 feet east and west, and the walls at the base are about 11 feet thick, and rise to about 6 feet at the summit. It is of three stages; the first resting on the basement, with its sill about 5 feet below the top level of the mound. The floors are of timber, resting upon sets-off in the side walls. The whole tower is about 80 feet high, its base being about 30 feet above the river. The west wall is entirely gone. The two eastern angles are capped each by two pilasters, 14 feet broad and 1 foot projection, meeting at a solid angle, and carried up without break or diminution to the summit, where they may have supported square turrets. The eastern curtain, between them, has a battering base, and a plain cordon at the first-floor level. The walls are perfectly plain, of coursed masonry, the stones probably hammer dressed; but, being of a perishable character, they are much blistered and decayed. The basement, 40 feet by 45 feet, has a floor about 20 feet above the outer ground level, now covered up with rubbish. There is a small window to the south, and a small square air-hole to the north, high up, as from a dungeon. In the same side, near the middle, is a full-centred doorway, 2 feet 2 inches broad, once closed by a stout door, and opening upon the slope of the mound. It leads into a passage 3 feet 6 inches broad, which entered the chamber, but had on its left a mural staircase of sixteen steps, which led to the first floor. Many of the steps remain, but the inner wall, and most of the hanging arches of the vault, are gone.

The first floor, 23 feet by 45 feet, had two windows to the south, one to the east, and to the north two, with a fireplace between them. The windows are broken into mere apertures, but the recesses are 5 feet to 6 feet broad. The fireplace has a round back and a vertical tunnel. The hood is broken away. There are no mural chambers, but outside, on each face of the eastern angles, are two sham loops.

The second floor has also five windows above, rather larger than those below, and a fireplace in the same position. In each jamb of the east window recess is a small door, which, by a passage, leads into a mural chamber in the two eastern angles. Each, on each of its two outer faces, has a small window.

The third floor has two windows to the north, one to the east, and two to the south, but here the position of the fireplace is between them. From the east window recess are two passages, opening into two chambers, each with two small windows above those of the second floor. The second floor was the stateroom, and the third apparently bedrooms belonging to it. The staircase may have been in the west wall. Of the window recesses, some have arches obtusely pointed, others are segmental. No doubt there was a door in the west wall, opening from the mound. The recesses of the windows of the second and third floors had each an ashlar rib, the only sort of ornament now visible. The keep, though of large size and substantially built, suffers in appearance from the badness of the material, its rough workmanship, and the very sparing use of ashlar in its details.

The summit of the mound was encircled by a curtain wall, of which the upper part of the keep formed a part, so that with the rectangular seems to have been combined a sort of shell keep, a most unusual arrangement. Of this shell there remain two fragments; one, a considerable one, towards the north-west, is composed of two nearly half-round towers, or rather bastions, with their converse faces outwards, and a short curtain connecting them, which seems to have been the end of a hall, and to contain some later insertions. The bastions are, no doubt, later than the keep. The other fragment is to the south-west, about 12 feet long by 6 feet thick, and 20 feet high. This also formed part of the general enceinte, but connected with it is a small circular mound, thrown up on the edge of the greater one, and wholly artificial. It is about 21 feet across at the top, and 12 feet to 13 feet high, and possibly carried a small tower; near it a depression seems to indicate the position of the well. The whole surface of the mound is rough and scarred, as though the area had been covered with buildings, as at Tamworth, and of which the foundations had been dug up.

The entrance to the mound could only have been on the western side ascending from the south-west. All the other sides are absolutely impracticable, and this has been so cut about that every vestige of a road is gone. On the platforms are no traces of walls. They may have had gatehouses of some sort, but the outer defences were probably always of timber.

The greater part of the borough, town, or rather village of Clun, is placed to the east—that is, in the rear of the castle; but there are houses on both banks of the river, which is spanned by an ancient bridge of five ribbed arches, with recesses above over the projecting piers. In this direction, a furlong from the castle, is the fine and mainly Norman church of St. George, with a western tower, strong enough to stand a siege, and in pattern resembling those of More and Hope-Say. About a hundred yards beyond or south of the church is a very remarkable ravine, natural, but which has, at that point, been scarped, and the earth thrown inwards to form a bank. This ravine commences some way above the church, and, becoming deeper and more steep, conveys a considerable brook into the Clun, a little below the town. This ravine adds immensely to the strength of the place.

Clun is a borough by prescription, having two bailiffs and a recorder. Recently it possessed a Hundred court for the recovery of small debts, and a court leet. The bailiffs also held a civil court. The Fitz-Alan charter, recognising its prescriptive rights, dates from the reign of Edward II. In the town is an ancient almshouse, founded by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, in 1614; and below it, upon the river, the traces of a very considerable millpool, now dry.

Clun is entered in Domesday as held by Picot. Edric had held it. Picot held large possessions (twenty-seven mansions) in the then Hundred of Rinlau, besides Conodovre, Basecherc, and Lentevrde, under Earl Roger de Montgomery. It appears from Mr. Eyton’s researches that Picot was a to-name, and that the grantee, as Robert de Say, with Adeloya his wife, and Robert and Henry, his sons, is named in a charter relating to St. Martin of Seez, of the probable date of 1060, and is there described as “Robertus de Sai qui cognominabatur Picot.” Sai was a vill near Exmes, the chief seat of the Norman viscounty of Earl Roger, who was the patron of the house of Seez.

That which in 1060 was a cognomen, in 1086 had become a nomen. In 1074 Odericus refers to him simply as Picod, one of the five whom Earl Roger placed over his new earldom of Shrewsbury, and again as Picot de Sai, when, in 1083, the Earl vowed to found Shrewsbury Abbey. Edric, Picot’s predecessor at Clun, was, without doubt, the Edric Silvaticus, or the Wild, so well known on the Welsh marches. Picot lived till about 1098, and was succeeded by his son, Henry de Say, who flourished in the reign of Henry I., and seems to have been alive as late as 1129–30. In his time, or that of his successor, and probably son, Helias de Say, Clun and Obley were eliminated from Ringau, and erected into an independent Hundred and Honour; becoming, in fact, a marcher lordship, such as Oswestry. Helias left a sole child, Isabel de Say, Lady of Clun, who married—first, William Fitz Alan; second, Geoffrey de Vere, when the barony contained 11¾ knights’ fees; and third, William Boterell, in whose time it seems to have been that the castle was stormed and burned by Llewellyn and his Welshmen.

William Fitz Alan was the son of Alan, son of Flaald, who obtained from the Conqueror the manor of Oswaldestre or Blancminster, which in 1148 had belonged to Meredith ap Blethyn, a somewhat singular instance of a Welsh landholder so far to the east of Offa’s Dyke. Meredith built a castle there, which, on Fitz Alan’s death in 1160, was in the custody of the sheriff, who sank a well there, and provided it with stores and palisades for defence. William Fitz Alan’s next brother, Walter, was ancestor of the House of Stewart. William’s first wife was a niece of Robert Earl of Gloucester. His second was Isabel de Say, by whom he left—

William Fitz Alan, who inherited Clun and Oswestry. He obtained an annual fair from King John for Clun. It seems probable that the Castle of Clun burned by the Welsh was the timber structure inhabited by Edric, and that it was replaced by works in masonry, including the existing keep, by this William, who, dying, 1210, left

William Fitz Alan, who died at Clun about 1215, and was succeeded by his brother,

John Fitz Alan, Lord of Clun and Oswestry, who held the barony but not the castle of Clun, and who died about 1243, leaving a son,

John Fitz Alan, who acquired Arundel Castle from his mother, and died 1267, leaving—

John Fitz Alan, Lord of Clun and Oswestry, and Earl of Arundel, who died 1272.

It was upon his death that an inquisition was ordered into the condition of Clun Castle, which was reported to be small, but pretty well built. The roof of the tower wanted lead, and the bridge to be repaired. Outside the castle was a bailey, enclosed with a fosse, and a gate not yet finished. In the bailey stood a grange, stable, and bakehouse. In the town were 183 burgages. The tenants held by castle guard, each finding a serviens and horse for forty days at 4½d. per day. The burgesses were to provide twenty men when the lord hunted.

In 1293, Richard Earl of Arundel received £200 from his Welsh tenants in Tempsett for a charter. At his death in 1301, Clun Castle was worth no more than the expenses of its maintenance, or £20 per annum. There were two water-mills.

Clun continued to be held by a long succession of Fitz Alans, few of whom were likely to have resided, until, the male line failing, Mary, daughter and co-heir of Henry Fitz Alan, married Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and carried the earldom of Arundel and the barony and castle of Clun into that family in the person of her son, Philip Earl of Arundel, who died 1595, under an attainder. Thomas, his son and successor, was restored in blood, but only partially in property, so that, though titular lord of Clun and Oswaldestre, he never possessed the estates, which were granted by King James to his grandfather’s brother, Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, who founded the almshouse at Clun. From Henry Howard, Clun and Oswestry passed by will to his nephew, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, whose younger son, Sir Robert, has a monument in the church of Clun, and by whose descendants the property was sold.