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

by George Thomas Clark

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.