13 Edward II., Sheriff Richard Walwyn charged £6. 13s. 6d. for repairs. At the close of the reign the queen held a great council at Hereford, and Hugh le Despenser, the younger, was hanged upon a tall gibbet, outside Friar’s Gate. During the reign of Edward II., Wales was loyal, and Hereford, therefore, neglected. John of Gaunt was its governor, 1 Richard II., but even his great love of building was not exercised here. As late as 8 Henry VI., the city had a grant of timber to replace the wall where wanting.
The castle lay unnoticed, and more or less of a ruin for some centuries, until it became the scene of one of the struggles between Charles and his people. It was first seized by Sir William Waller for the Parliament in 1643, with the city, then also walled, and the position of which is naturally strong. He retired from it before Prince Maurice, but shortly afterwards, without stroke of sword, recovered possession, again to retire, so that in 1644 it was still held by the king. In 1645, however, its troubles began in good earnest. Leslie and the Scots laid regular siege to it, and from the south of the Wye opened a destructive fire upon the castle, cathedral, and bishop’s palace. Sir Barnabas Scudamore, with eleven guns, held out stoutly, beat off an attempt at a storm, and forced the enemy to be content with a blockade. As the mills without the walls were destroyed, others were extemporised within them. The Scots then encamped on Burtonshaw Meads, close under the castle, between it and the river. Scudamore, whose defences were out of repair, and his garrison weak, sent out for country folks to assist as workmen. The enemy found this out, and, entering under the guise of workmen, succeeded in taking the place. Much injury was then done to the public buildings, and the castle, as belonging to the Crown, and a ruin, was sold about 1652, for the value of the materials.
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.