Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 2 (of 2)

by George Thomas Clark

Richard’s Castle is one of a series of works common on the Welsh border and the Middle Marshes. Such were Hereford and Worcester, in modern times despoiled of their mounds: Shrewsbury, still towering above the deep and rapid Severn: Tre-Faldwin or Montgomery, a single instance of a town and county bearing the name of the invader: Kilpeck and Ewias-Harold, already described: Builth, the extreme limit westward held for any time by the English: Cardiff, Caerleon, Wigmore, and Richard’s Castle.

Richard’s Castle, fortress and parish, takes name from a certain Richard Fitz-Scrob, one of the Normans attached to the court of the Confessor, and who was quartered by that prince upon probably the most exposed district upon the Welsh frontier; a position commanding some of the richest and most regretted of the lands conquered by the English, and sure to be assailed frequently and in force.

What invader originally threw up the magnificent earthwork which must have guided Fitz-Scrob in his choice of a residence, is not known, but from its summit is comprehended one of the noblest and most extensive prospects to be found even in a quarter of England very rich in pleasing combinations of wood and water, lofty hills and broad and fertile dales. As the new settler traversed the meads of the Severn, and left behind him the grassy meadows of the Team and the Lugg, and rode up the rising ground to the point where his own or his son’s devotion afterwards established a church, he must have blessed the fate that placed him amidst a country so rich, and in the possession of which the vast earthwork immediately before him would be an assurance of more than ordinary security.

The advent of Fitz-Scrob must have been viewed with profound dislike from opposite quarters. In those days, on the very eve of the coming in of William, Gruffydd, the Welsh Prince, well knew how formidable a neighbour was a Norman knight; and the English, who were aware what engines of local tyranny were the Norman castles, could not but have regarded with dismay the lofty walls and towers, which made impregnable a place already strong, and converted a well-known burh into a castle such as they had heard of with dread but had not before seen.

What were the precise works constructed by Richard it is difficult to say. That he converted the mound into his keep, and girt the annexed ward with a wall is possible, though the masonry, of which vast fragments still remain, is apparently of rather a later date. There is no reason to suppose that he built a rectangular keep. There was already a mound. His keep would be on its summit, and, if masonry were employed in its construction, it must have been a shell or low tower at most of 30 feet or 35 feet diameter, such as is seen on the mound of Cardiff.

The first danger to the new lord came from Earl Godwin and his sons, who represented the English, and therefore the anti-Norman feeling. One of the avowed grievances for the redress of which they met in arms at Beverston, in 1052, was the presence of Richard Fitz-Scrob upon English soil. That they failed, and that their failure led to the temporary exile of Earl Godwin is a matter of history. Richard remained unmolested, and, doubtless, employed himself in adding to his castle that strength which it could scarcely have in excess. It is not stated that he shared in the campaign and ignominious defeat of Earl Ralf the Timid against Prince Gruffydd, but probably he did so.

In 1056, Harold, then Earl of the West Saxons, entered the Marches against the Welsh, and advanced into Archerfield, where his probable godson, Harold, the son of Ralph, held the Castle of Ewias-Harold, the earthworks of which were constructed on the type of those of Richard’s Castle, and which, a few years later, was to receive additions in masonry after the same pattern. Whether Richard was in alliance with Earl Harold or Harold of Ewias is not known, but the position of his castle would scarcely allow him to be neuter.

In 1062, Gruffydd was again over the Herefordshire border, and Harold, then holding the Earldom of Hereford, was again at his post, and the Lord of Ewias joined him. This was followed by the larger expedition, in which Harold invaded Wales by sea from Bristol, conjointly with his brother Tostig from Northumberland. They met at Rhuddlan, and soon after the Welsh Prince was massacred by his own people. During these turbulent years the whole border must have been in constant turmoil, and we may fairly suppose that Richard, to whom both parties were in substance opposed, must have fortified his castle by every means then in use.

The arrival of the Conqueror relieved Richard from his most formidable foe, the English people directed by an English leader. He and his son Osbert shared in the ascendancy of their race, and received from William large grants in Herefordshire and elsewhere which are duly recorded in Domesday.

RICHARD’S CASTLE.