TAMWORTH CASTLE stands at the confluence of the Anker with the Tame, on the right bank of either, between the town and the latter river, and close above St. Mary’s Bridge. It occupies a position near the east end of the south, or river front, of the old town, the outlines of which are still indicated by a bank and ditch, showing it to have been in plan a parallelogram, with one side resting upon the Tame, and the east end defended by the Anker. The low ground about the junction of the rivers, the broad meadows on the left bank of the Tame opposite to, and on both banks below the town, in their natural condition a deep morass, must have rendered the place nearly inaccessible upon its east, south, and west fronts; and, no doubt, led to its conversion into a safe residence at a very early period.
As the ground rises from the river, the town and its grand old church occupy positions rather higher than the castle, and which must always have been dry and airy and, in consequence, salubrious.
The line of the town defence upon the east side is known as the King’s Ditch, in reference, it is supposed, to the Mercian Offa. Though without anything like sharpness of outline, and occupied as a nursery garden, the work is by no means obliterated, and may be traced nearly from the Anker below Bolebridge for about 300 yards northwards. It is composed of a raised bank, which formed a terrace behind the wall or palisade, a ditch more or less filled up, and beyond this a slope representing a glacis, or space outside the works, which it was the custom from a very early period to keep clear of cover. Bank and ditch are about 45 feet broad. The Market-street intersects the line of defence, and, being old, probably was crossed by a gatehouse. There are some slight and uncertain traces of masonry upon its north side. Further north, a modern road affords a good section of the bank.
This side joins the north front at a right angle, within which is a sort of tump, remembered as somewhat larger, and which looks as if it marked the site of a mural tower, or perhaps a cavalier or small mount.
The defences of the north front skirt the Lichfield and Polesworth road, and are traceable nearly to the cross-road from Seckington. Beyond this, the line, now built over or enclosed in walled gardens, was traced by Dugdale along a front altogether of 400 paces, to a mount marking the north-west corner, from which the line passed at right angles southwards to the river. This would give a space of about 300 yards by 400 yards as the enclosure of the town. Outside the west front the ground sinks rapidly into the meadows, among which, on the river bank, and just outside the town, is the Moat House, an old seat of the Comberfords, still standing in all its dampness, although the moat has been filled up.
The principal bridge, that across the Tame, close below the castle, known as St. Mary’s or Lady Bridge, is of modern construction. It succeeded a mediæval structure, shown in Shaw’s plate of 1780, the precursor of which was probably a bridge, or perhaps a ford, of Saxon times. In Leland’s day, a stone upon it bore the arms of Lord Basset, of Drayton.
Bow, or Bolebridge, crosses the Anker, and leads to the hamlet of Bolehill and to Nuneaton.
The church is a large structure of considerable merit, containing some Norman work, apparently once connected with a central tower, and in which may be seen traces of herring-bone masonry. East of it are some ruins, known as the Deanery, part of which seems also to be Norman. The Market-place, though much altered, represents an early space set aside for trading purposes.
Tamworth has no historical pretensions to either British or Roman origin. The Britons would have designated it from the smaller stream. The earliest mention of it is in the records of the people in whose tongue it is named. Offa, King of Mercia, in a charter of A.D. 781, announces himself as “Ego Offa rex, sedens in regali palatio in Tamoworthige,” an evidence of its distinction at that time, and one which renders it probable that it had an earlier history. Cenwulf dates a charter of A.D. 816, “In vico celeberrimo qui vocatur Tomoworthig,” and other royal charters are dated from it in 841 and 854. So that in the eighth and ninth centuries it was already a royal residence and a place of celebrity.
The Danes ravaged it in common with much of Mercia early in the tenth century, and in A.D. 913–14 it was restored by Æthelflaed,