There are no remains of the priory save what are included within the parish church. This is a good-sized building, recently repaired or restored, and in excellent order. It is composed of a tower, nave, south porch, and chancel. The nave has been so completely restored that little of old work is to be seen in its walls or roof. It is probably in substance of Decorated date, judging from the buttresses on the south side. The porch is new. The chancel has in the north wall a sepulchral recess, of Decorated pattern, covering the original recumbent figure of a female with her hands in prayer, holding what looks like a covered cup. In the south wall are two lancet windows of one light, under pointed recesses, and between them a late Decorated window of two lights, trefoiled, with a plain four-sided opening in the head. The whole is in a round-headed recess. The arch into the nave is new.
The tower is the best part of the church. It is of large size, square, and short for its size, probably having had another story. It rests upon a bold plinth, about 5 feet 6 inches high, at the top of which is a bold half-round cordon, with a band. The south-west angle is covered by the pilaster buttresses, of 8 feet 6 inches breadth, and a foot projection, which die into the tower, near the present summit. In this angle is a well-stair. In the south side is an unusually large door, of 8 feet opening, with high lancet arch. In the centre of the flat jamb on each side is a half-column, 2 feet diameter, with a water-bearing moulding, and a sort of bell-cap, with several bands of moulding above it. The arch is plainly chamfered, and the cordon of the tower is carried round it as a hood. Above this is a clumsy window of two lancet lights under a pointed head, very plain. Above this again is a small broad window, with a trefoiled head, and above all an early English window of three lights, with three-quarter shafts before each mullion, with bell-caps. In the nooks of each jamb are two similar shafts, seven in all. The head is a drop-pointed arch, plainly chamfered. There is a window similar to this in the north wall. The church contains nothing earlier than this mixture of the early English with the Decorated style. The masonry of the castle was probably, from its plan, of a late Norman, or transitional date. The earthworks are of the regular Herefordshire type; attributable to the English of the early part of the tenth century. They resemble generally, in the presence of a mound, those of Kilpeck and Builth, Caerleon and Cardiff, of Brecon, Abergavenny, and many places in this county or district. No doubt this and the similar works were thrown up when the early Saxon inroads were made into Wales, and were the strongholds of the invading chiefs.
Ewias Harold certainly does not bear the name of its founder, and that founder was probably as completely forgotten in the eleventh century as now.
There are two places called Ewias in Herefordshire, distinguished by the names of their eleventh-century owners, as Ewias Lacy and Ewias Harold. Both are mentioned in Domesday, and both as the seats of a castelry, a sort of Honour or superior lordship attached to the castle. Under the lands of the church of Hereford, we are told that “in the manors of Dodelegie and Stane are ten hydes, all waste save one in Dodelegie. Of the nine, one part is ‘in castellaria Aluredi Ewias,’ and the other in the King’s enclosed land.”
Another entry explains that Alured was Alured de Merleberge or of Marleborough, a great tenant in chief, especially in Wiltshire. We read, “Alured de M. holds the castle of Ewias of William the King. For that king conceded to him the lands which William the Earl [Fitzosbern of Hereford] had given to him. Who refortified [refirmaverit] this castle.” Of it held seven knights, whose Christian names are given, besides other persons. The castle was then valued at £10. Agnes, the daughter of Alured, married Turstan of Wigmore.
How or when Alured gave up the castle does not appear; but in 1100 it was held by a certain Harold, also a large tenant in Domesday, though not in Herefordshire. He is called “Heraldus filius comitis Radulphi,” and as such held Sudeley, in Gloucestershire. Earl Ralph, called the Timid, was the Earl of Hereford who was beaten by the Welsh and English forces in 1055, when his son was a mere child. Ralph was a considerable man by descent, being great-grandson of Æthelred and great-nephew to the Confessor. Harold probably obtained some of his father’s possessions when he came of age, and Ewias may have been part of them. He and his descendants were liberal donors to St. Peter’s, Gloucester, in its behalf founding the Priory near the Castle of Ewias.
The names and order of Harold’s sons are preserved in the Gloucester Cartulary, and they correct Dugdale and all other authorities. They were Robert, Roger, John (to whom his father gave Sudeley, and whose issue were barons), Alexander, and William. Robert de Ewias, the eldest, is described in the “Gesta Stephani” as “vir stemmatis ingenuissimi.” According to the “Liber Niger,” he held in capite upwards of forty-seven fees, the mesne tenants of which were twenty knights. Dugdale mentions only twenty-two fees, and confounds him with a second Robert, his son, also Lord of Ewias. The elder Robert had by his wife Sybilla, Robert, and Richard de Ewias, who left a daughter and heiress, Sybilla, who married Philip Spenser, and left issue.
Robert de Ewias, the third owner of the castle, and the second baron, married Petronilla. He was living 1194–6. He also left a Sybilla, daughter and heiress of Ewias. She married, first, Robert de Tregoz; second, William de Newmarch, whom she married during her father’s lifetime, in the reign of Richard I. He was living 11 John. Third, Roger de Clifford, probably the second brother of William de Clifford. From this match spring the Earls of Cumberland. Newmarch had no children. Sybilla was dead 20 Henry III., and was followed by her son, Robert de Tregoz, slain at Evesham 1265. He was father of John and Henry, father of a line of barons who ended about 1405.
John de Tregoz died 1300, leaving two co-heirs, Clarice and Sybil. Clarice, who died 29 Edward I., married Roger la Warre, and had John, aged 23, in 1300; and Sybil married Sir William de Grandison, ancestor in the female line of the St. Johns, Viscounts Grandison. In the partition, John la Warre had the “body of the castle,” of which, 4 Edward III., he enfeoffed John de Cleydon. He died 21 Edward III. John, his eldest son, died before him, and as early as 12 Edward III. he had enfeoffed his grandson, Roger la Warre, and Elizabeth his wife, with Ewias Castle and Manor.
Roger la Warre died 44 Edward III., seized of Ewias Harold, and was succeeded by John, his son. 13 Richard II., Sir John de Montacute, sen., is seized of Ewias Harold, and three Wiltshire fees in the Honour of Ewias, and Teffont-Ewias, in Wiltshire, besides other Ewias lands in Herefordshire. 18 Richard II., these same lands were held by Margaret, wife of Sir John Montacute, Bart.; and 10 Henry IV., by Thomas de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury.