DESCRIPTION OF THE DEFENCES.
The castle of Hereford was one of the strongest, most advanced, and most important fortresses upon the Welsh March, and one which, being posted in a very fertile and open district, was peculiarly offensive to, and very liable to the attacks of, the Welsh people. The present remains are not inconsiderable, but, as is often the case with fortresses of pre-Norman date, they are confined chiefly to earthworks, and include but slight traces of the later defences of masonry.
The castle was placed upon the left or northern bank of the Wye, east of and below the city bridge, the cathedral, and in some measure the city, of which it occupied the south-eastern corner. Though excluded from the city liberties, it is, in common with the city, covered at some distance by a steep slope, at the foot of which lies the Yazor brook, which, rising far off to the west beyond Kentchester, and the remains of Magna Castra, supplied the broad tract of lowland still known as Forster’s Moor, Moorfield, Canon’s Moor, Prior’s Moor, Eastern Moor, Moor Barn, and Widemarsh, to the north-west of the city, and which, after skirting its north front below Baron Court, turns Monkmoor and Scult Mills, and finally falls into the Wye, at Eigne Mill, some traces of which remain about half a mile in advance of, and below the castle. The ground thus included is to the north-east, a broad and dry platform of gravel, very fertile, and probably employed as a safe pasture in wild times. The lower tract to the north-west, now drained, and either cultivated or built upon, must, in former days, have been an almost impracticable morass.
The city of Hereford, within its walls, was, in plan, about three-fourths of an irregular circle, placed upon the Wye, which forms its concave chord. Its dimensions were, north and south, 600 yards; east and west, 770 yards; and along the river bank, about 600 yards; including the cathedral and the castle. The total girth was about 2,350 yards. The walls—no doubt Norman—upon the older lines, were confined to the landward sides, excepting about 50 yards above the city bridge, and were in length about a mile and a quarter. They were pierced by six gates—Wye Bridge, removed in 1782; Friar’s Gate and Eigne, on the west, removed in 1787; Widemarsh Gate and Bye or Bishop’s Gate, towards the north, removed in 1798; and St. Andrew’s or St. Owen’s Gate, on the east, removed in 1786.
The walls were reinforced by fifteen hollow mural towers, placed from 75 yards to 125 yards apart, or at a “flyte shoot,”—explained to be within 400 yards, and here much less. They were rather more than half round—that is to say, their side walls were a little prolonged or stilted in plan, and they were 34 feet high, having a cruciform loop in front, and probably two others laterally. Of these, two at least remain and are accessible, though their upper half has been removed. The intervening curtain was 16 feet high on the interior, but it was built against the old English bank, which thus covered the lower 6 feet of the interior face, and served as a ramp. Besides the two towers already mentioned, which stood on the north-west face, the wall may be traced along the western side from Bishop’s Gate—now “the Commercial Road”—to the river bank. Where it has been pulled down the step remains, and the difference between the level within and without is brought to view. Of this wall the part from the Friar’s Gate to the river is open to view from the exterior paddock. The ditch has been partly filled up, but the wall remains about 12 feet high, unaltered, save by the removal of its upper 4 feet or 6 feet. At regular intervals along it of about 50 feet are broad pilaster buttresses, of slight projection, and without sets-off. These die into the wall below its present top. There do not appear to have been any mural towers on this part of the wall. Some kind of manufactory conceals the termination of this wall upon the river, where there was probably a tower; and from this point to the bridge a line of modern houses effectually conceals any foundations that may have escaped. The tracing out the town wall, or what remains of it, though aided by parallel streets, representing the rampart within and the ditch without, is a delicate operation; for the lowest houses of the city are here found, and the inhabitants seem to drive the trade of those who, at Jericho, dwelt in a similar locality. That part of the wall showing the pilasters is, no doubt, the original Norman wall. The part beyond, or, at least, the towers upon it, is probably of the time of Henry III. The wide modern street, called Commercial Road, which takes the place of the old Bishop’s Gate, has, of course, caused the removal of all traces of the wall near the site of the gate; but the line may still be traced round the eastern quarter of the city as far as the angle of the castle. Here, as before, are two roads—one inside and one outside the line of the wall—the actual place of which is shown, sometimes by a few stones built into the walls of later houses, and sometimes by a dip of nearly 6 feet in level. Beyond St. Owen’s Gate the actual wall remains for some yards, and may be seen from the exterior road. It extends to the counterscarp of the castle ditch, where it ends abruptly, having been in part pulled down.
The city bridge crosses the Wye by six arches, round headed, and all apparently old. One is stiffened with three plain square ribs, and another shows traces of a similar addition. The bridge has bold piers, and advantage has been taken of this to widen it by turning a subsidiary arch, about 5 feet wide, on each face, so that the old work is partially concealed. It does not appear where the fortified gateway was placed; probably upon the last narrow arch on the city side. This does not, indeed, show any trace of having been perforated for a drawbridge, and tradition places the gate at the outer end.
Next to and a little below the bridge, near the river bank, and a little south of the centre of the city, stands the cathedral, and below and next to it the castle.
Besides the cathedral and its appendage of St. John’s, there stood within the walls four churches—St. Nicholas’s, All Saints’, St. Peter’s, and St. Owen’s. There was also St. Martin’s, beyond the Wye, destroyed during the civil wars. The disposition of the streets is irregular, and in no way cruciform or indicative of any Roman arrangement. Thus situated and defended, Hereford was a very strong place, as it had need to be, for it was exposed to the fierce and repeated attacks of the Welsh, who especially resented, as was natural, the conquest of their most fertile provinces by the invaders.
The castle, as has been said, occupied the south-eastern quarter of the city. It lay in the parish of St. John. Leland describes it as one of the fairest, largest, and strongest castles in England.
It was composed of two wards placed side by side along the bank of the Wye, not actually on the stream, which, when the defences were of earth, might have undermined them; but about 7 yards distant from and on the edge of a steep sloping bank, about 8 feet above the water.
In general plan the eastern ward was an oblong, the sides being nearly straight, and the east end narrower than the west. The eastern end runs at right angles to the river, and measures along the old line of its wall 100 yards. The south or river front measured 175 yards, as did the north front. The west front, connecting the two, measured 196 yards. This inclosure formed the eastern or lower ward, and contained about 26,000 square yards.
The upper or western ward was applied to the end of the eastern, and like it rested on the river. In form it was rounded, or rather irregularly polygonal, and composed of a large conical mound, wholly artificial, with a circular circumscribing ditch. Within the ditch it measured, on the east and south sides, each 100 yards, and, on the three remaining sides, 60 yards each. It was, therefore, in girth about 380 yards, and in area about 14,000 yards. Thus the area of the whole castle, ditches included, might be about 8¼ acres. The eastern ward is stated to have contained about 5½ acres.
The earthworks of the lower ward are tolerably perfect. They are composed of a steep bank along the north and east sides, from 15 feet to 30 feet high, the highest and broadest part being at the north-east angle, where there was probably a tower. This bank has evidently been thrown up out of a broad and deep ditch, which remains perfect and full of water, on the north front; but has recently been filled up along the east as far as the river; nor do there remain any traces of the castle mill, which stood at its junction with the river. The ground is raised along the river front about 4 feet, and may have been higher. Along the west or side towards the upper ward, the bank has been thrown into the ditch, and there is only a trace of either. Leland says there was “a great bridge of stone arches, and a drawbridge in the middle of it to enter into the castle;” but even in Leland’s time this was gone.
The entrance to this ward was evidently at its north-west angle, where the moat is crossed by a causeway, and the public now enter. There was a gatehouse in Speed’s time, which he places, probably by an error of drawing, near the middle of this face. But the bank is there far too high, and the ditch far too deep and broad, to allow of the entrance being placed there.
The modern museum, built on the river at the south-west angle of the ward, or rather between the two wards, and over the line of the ditch, contains some parts of an older building, and a doorway of the time of Henry III. or Edward I. This building probably guarded the opening of the middle ditch into the river, and was also the gatehouse between the two wards. Speed shows a sort of water-gate here, which is probable enough. The surface of the lower ward is level. In it stood the chapel of St. Cuthbert, with a semicircular apse, and in Speed’s time also two small dwelling-houses. Leland says, “There is a fayre and plentifull spring of water in the castell, and that, and the piece of the brook coming out of the ditch, did drive a mill within the castle.” This was in addition to the mill outside and north of the castle, and probably was a part of the present museum-house.
The earthworks of the upper ward have unfortunately been destroyed, the mound and banks thrown into the ditches, and all made level and much built over. The site of the mound is occupied by an enclosed three-cornered kitchen garden. The well or spring spoken of as St. Ethelred’s remains. It opens behind the museum building about 50 feet from the river, and 6 feet or 8 feet above it. As it is described as being further north, it is probable that when the ditch was filled up a pipe was laid to bring the water out at its original level. This ward contained the mound known as the Castle Hill, and which seems to have been removed early in the present century. It was girded at the base by a polygonal curtain wall, outside of which was the ditch. It is difficult clearly to understand how the mound was occupied. Leland says “there was one great tower in the inner warde.” Sir Henry Slingsby, in his diary, in 1645, describes Hereford city as not much unlike York, “for it hath a round tower mounted upon a hill, like to Clifford’s Tower, and the mills near it, with some little works about, having the river Wye running close by; but the walls, though they be high, yet are not mounted upon a ramp, as York walls are.” This is intelligible enough, the walls spoken of having been at the base of the hill; but Leland speaks also of a donjon or keep, of what plan is unknown; but upon its wall ten half-round towers, and within, what appears to have been a square tower of considerable height, in the base of which was a dungeon. We may safely conclude from Sir Henry Slingsby’s very clear account that the mound carried, like Cardiff and Kilpeck, a shell keep; but this could scarcely have been furnished with ten half-round towers. These probably belonged to the enceinte wall below. The keep was entered, it seems, from the south-east side by a flight of steep steps up the mound. In the mound was a well, lined with stone, as at York.
The castle ditches were wide, deep, and filled with water, not from the river, or but partially so, but from a brook, which seems to have fed the city ditch on this side, and on reaching the castle at the north-east angle to have divided, a part running direct along the east front of the lower ward, to the river, and the other part supplying the north ditch, and the ditch which divided the upper from the lower ward, and the ditch which passed round the east side of the ward, and divided it from the cathedral precinct. This latter ditch also received some little contribution from St. Ethelred’s Well, a spring on the north side of the upper ward, already mentioned. The castle mill stood at the junction of the eastern ditch with the Wye. The water in the castle ditches was, of course, penned back for the use of the mill, and to strengthen the defences, and it seems to have flowed back upon the city ditch as far as St. Owen’s Gate, thus strengthening and connecting the city and the castle.
We have, then, to recapitulate, as the constituent parts of Hereford Castle, an oblong space, with the river on one side, and high banks and ditches on the other three. One end was cut off from the rest, and had its proper ditch, more or less circular, and within it a conical mound, with a table summit, and upon it a shell keep, with some kind of central tower, probably an addition. At the base of the mound, within its ditch, was a second wall, many sided in plan.
The lower ward, no doubt, had its walls along the summit of the earthworks, and these probably were low, by reason of the height of the bank and the depth of the ditch beyond. There was a gatehouse at the land entrance at the north-west angle, and a water-gate at the south-western, where also was the passage between the two wards. Very likely there was a postern at the south-eastern angle, where is now a footway.
There is a general resemblance, as regards the mound and bank, between these arrangements and those at Wallingford, Wareham, and Tamworth, and with what is related of the castle of Worcester.