Goodrich Castle

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Goodrich Castle

Herefordshire


Goodrich Castle, from the east
Type: Concentric castle
Location
Grid reference: SO579199
Location: 51°52’36"N, 2°36’57"W
Village: Goodrich
History
Information
Condition: Ruined
Owned by: English Heritage
(in the care of English Heritage)

Goodrich Castle is a now ruinous Norman mediæval castle situated to the north of the village of Goodrich in Herefordshire, controlling a key location between Monmouth and Ross-on-Wye. It was praised by William Wordsworth as the "noblest ruin in Herefordshire"[1] and is considered by historian Adrian Pettifer to be the "most splendid in the county, and one of the best examples of English military architecture".[2]

Goodrich Castle was probably built by Godric of Mappestone after the Norman invasion of England, initially as an earth and wooden fortification. In the middle of the 12th century the original castle was replaced with a stone keep, and was then expanded significantly during the late 13th century into a concentric structure combining luxurious living quarters with extensive defences. The success of Goodrich's design influenced many other constructions across England over the following years. It became the seat of the powerful Talbot family before falling out of favour as a residence in late Tudor times.

Held first by Parliamentarian and then Royalist forces in the Civil War of the 1640s, Goodrich was finally successfully besieged by Colonel John Birch in 1646 with the help of the huge mortar known as "Roaring Meg", resulting in the subsequent slighting of the castle and its descent into ruin.

At the end of the 18th century, however, Goodrich became a noted picturesque ruin and the subject of many paintings and poems; events at the castle provided the inspiration for Wordsworth's famous 1798 poem "We are Seven". By the 20th century the site was a well-known tourist location, now owned by English Heritage and open to the public.

Architecture

The south-eastern tower

Goodrich Castle stands on a high rocky sandstone outcrop overlooking the River Wye. It commands a crossing of the river, known as Walesford or Walford, about 16 miles from Hereford and 4 miles from Ross-on-Wye.[3] The castle guards the line of the former Roman road from Gloucester to Caerleon as it crosses the Wye.[4]

At the heart of the castle is an early n square keep of light grey sandstone, with Norman windows and pilaster buttresses.[5] Although the keep had thick walls, its relatively small size – the single chambers on each floor measure only 5.5000 s (First argument to "number_format" must be a number. s) internally[6] – would have made it more useful for defence than for day-to-day living.[7] The keep originally had a first-storey door for safety, this was later turned into a window and the entrance brought down to the ground floor.[2] The keep would originally have had an earth mound built up against the base of it to protect against attack, and the stone work remains rougher in the first few courses of masonry.[7]

Around the keep is an essentially square structure guarded by three large towers, all built during the 1280s from somewhat darker sandstone.[1] On the more vulnerable southern and eastern sides of the castle, ditches 90 feet long and 28 feet deep have been cut into the rock,[8] exploiting a natural fissure.[5] These towers have large spurs, resulting from the interface of a solid, square-based pyramid with the circular towers rising up against the walls. This feature is characteristic of castles in the Welsh Marches, including St Briavel's and Tonbridge Castle, and was intended to prevent the undermining of the towers by attackers.[9]

The exposed causeway to the gatehouse

The castle's fourth corner forms its gatehouse. Here the classic Edwardian gatehouse design has been transformed into an asymmetrical structure, with one tower much larger than the other.[10] The gatehouse included portcullises, murder-holes and a drawbridge. Beyond the gatehouse lies a large barbican, inspired by a similar design of the period at the Tower of London and possibly built by the same workmen, designed to protect the causeway leading to the gatehouse.[11] The barbican today is only half of its original height, and includes its own gate, designed to trap intruders within the inner defences.[12] The gatehouse and barbican are linked by a stone causeway.

The gatehouse's eastwards-facing tower contains the chapel, an unusual arrangement driven by a lack of space, with a recently restored east window of reset 15th-century glass designed by Nicola Hopwood, which illuminates the priest's seat, or sedile.[13] The 15th-century window frame itself replaced an even taller, earlier 13th-century window.[14] The chapel's west window is modern, and commemorates British servicemen who died between 1936–76 in radar development.[nb 1] The altar itself is particularly old, possibly pre-dating the castle.[15]

The bailey was designed to include a number of spacious domestic buildings. These include a great hall, a solarium, kitchen, buttery and pantry,[10] with a luxuriously large number of gardrobes and fireplaces.[16] The large towers provided additional accommodation.[10] The design of the domestic buildings was skilfully interlocked to support the defensive arrangements of the bailey.[16] The great hall for example, 66 feet by 30 feet, was placed in the strongest position overlooking the river Wye, allowing it to benefit from multiple large windows and a huge fireplace without sacrificing defensive strength.[15] Water for the castle was originally raised from the courtyard well, but was later piped in from a spring across the valley;[17] the castle kitchens had acquired running water by the beginning of the 17th century.[1] The design of the buildings ensured that the servants and nobility were able to live separately from one another in the confined space of the castle, revolutionary at the time.[18]

Beyond the main bailey walls lies the stable block, now ruined but with a visible cobble floor.[19] The stables and the north and west sides of the castle were protected by another, smaller curtain wall, but this is now largely ruined.[20] Accounts suggest that the original stables could hold around 60 horses, although by the 17th century they had been expanded to accommodate more.[21]

Today

The ruins depicted by Hugh William 'Grecian' Williams in 1801

Today, the castle at Goodrich is considered by historians to be the "most splendid in the county, and one the best examples of English military architecture".[2] The castle is classed as a Grade I listed building and as a Scheduled Monument.[22]

Substantial remains still exist and are open to the public, managed by English Heritage. The adjacent Victorian castle of Goodrich Court was demolished in 1949, restoring the original landscape.[23] The Roaring Meg mortar, preserved by the local council, has been returned to the site, along with a number of Civil War cannonballs found at Goodrich during excavations in the 1920s.[24]

Folklore

Several legends surround the castle at Goodrich. The Great Keep has the alternative name of the "Macbeth tower", after stories of an Irish chieftain held prisoner there. According to some tales, he died attempting to escape and his ghost is said to still haunt the tower.[25]

The events of the Civil War also have left their mark. Local stories tell that Colonel Birch's niece, Alice Birch, fell in love with a handsome Royalist, Charles Clifford; according to these stories the two attempted to escape before the final assault but died in a flash flood while trying to cross the River Wye, and live on as ghosts on the site.

Outside links

 ("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Goodrich Castle)

References

  1. ↑ The link between the castle and radar development is due to flight VS9977, which crashed near Goodrich Castle in 1942 whilst testing advanced radar systems, killing the famous British scientist Alan Blumlein.
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Hull and Whitehorne, p. 37.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Pettifer, p. 96.
  3. ↑ Storer and Greig, 1809.
  4. ↑ Creighton, p. 43.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Pettifer, p. 96; Hull and Whitehorne, p. 37.
  6. ↑ Thompson, p. 65.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Ashbee, p. 17.
  8. ↑ Hull, p. 54.
  9. ↑ Pettifer, pp. 96–7; Thompson, p. 114.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Pettifer, p. 97.
  11. ↑ Pettifer, p. 97; Ashbee, p. 5 comments on the use of the same royal workmen.
  12. ↑ Hull, p. 64.
  13. ↑ Alington, p. 36; Thompson, p. 133; Pound, p. 240; Ashbee, p. 11.
  14. ↑ Ashbee, p. 7.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Alington, p. 36.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Emery, p. 32.
  17. ↑ Alington, p. 36; Ashbee p. 22.
  18. ↑ Emery, p. 477.
  19. ↑ Emery, p. 688.
  20. ↑ Ashbee, p. 24.
  21. ↑ Ashbee, p. 25.
  22. ↑ National Monuments Record: No. 109566
  23. ↑ Harris, p. 291.
  24. ↑ Announcement on English Heritage website, accessed 1 August 2010.
  25. ↑ Fanthorpe and Fanthorpe, p. 169.

Books

  • Alington, Gabriel. (1998) Borderlands: the History and Romance of the Herefordshire marches. Leominster: Gracewing. ISBN 0-85244-475-3.
  • Ashbee, Jeremy. (2005) Goodrich Castle. London: English Heritage. ISBN 978-1-85074-942-4.
  • Brayley, Edward William and William Tombleson. (1823) A Series of Views of the Most Interesting Remains of Ancient Castles of England and Wales. London: Longman.
  • Creighton, O. H. (2002) Castles and Landscapes: Power, Community and Fortification in Mediæval England. London: Equinox. ISBN 978-1-904768-67-8.
  • Crouch, David. (2002) William Marshal: knighthood, war and chivalry, 1147–1219. Harlow: Pearson Education. ISBN 978-0-582-77222-9.
  • Danziger, Danny and John Gillingham. (2003) 1215: The Year of the Magna Carta. London: Coronet Books. ISBN 978-0-7432-5778-7.
  • Doherty, P.C. (2003) Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II. London: Robinson.
  • Emery, Anthony. (2006) Greater Mediæval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Southern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-58132-5.
  • Fanthorpe, Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe. (2005) The World's Most Mysterious Castles. Toronto: Dundurn Press. ISBN 978-1-55002-577-4.
  • Fielding, Theodore Henry. (1825) British castles: or, a compendious history of the ancient military structures of Great Britain. London: Rowlett and Brimmer.
  • Fosbrooke, Thomas Dudley (1818) The Wye tour: or, Gilpin on the Wye. Ross, UK: Farror. OCLC 319984569.
  • Goodrich, Samuel Griswold. (1852/2005) Recollections of a Lifetime Or Men and Things I Have Seen in a Series of Familiar Letters to a Friend. Kessinger. ISBN 978-0-548-07479-4.
  • Hargreaves, Matthew. (2007) Great British Watercolors: from the Paul Mellon collection. Yale: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11658-8.
  • Harris, John. (2007) Moving Rooms: the Trade in Architectural Salvages. Yale: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-12420-0.
  • Hassard, John Rose Greene (1881) A Pickwickian Pilgrimage. Boston: Osgood.
  • Hull, Lise E. (2006) Britain's Mediæval Castles. Westport: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-275-98414-4.
  • Hull, Lise E. and Whitehorne, Stephen. (2008) Great Castles of Britain & Ireland. London: New Holland Publishers. ISBN 978-1-84773-130-2.
  • Mallgrave, Harry Francis. (2005) Modern Architectural Theory: a Historical Survey, 1673–1968. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-79306-3.
  • Manganiello, Stephen C. (2004) The Concise Encyclopedia of the Revolutions and Wars of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1639–1660. Lanham: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5100-9.
  • Musty, A. E. S. (2007) Roaring Meg: Test Firing a Copy of Colonel Birch's Civil War Mortar. Hereford: Archaeological and Archival, with Mainmast Conservation. ISBN 978-0-9556333-0-0.
  • Neele, Henry. (1830) Lectures on English poetry: from the reign of Edward the Third, to the time of Burns and Cowper, 2nd edition. London: Smith and Elder.
  • Pettifer, Adrian. (1995) English Castles: A Guide by Counties. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-782-5.
  • Pounds, Norman John Greville. (1990) The Mediæval Castle in England and Wales: a social and political history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-45828-3.
  • Radford, Courtenay Arthur Ralegh. (1958) Goodrich Castle, Herefordshire. H.M. Stationery Office.
  • Rickard, John. (2002) The Castle Community: the Personnel of English and Welsh Castles, 1272–1422. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-913-3.
  • Robinson, Charles John. (1869) A history of the castles of Herefordshire and their lords. London: Longman.
  • Storer, James Sargant and John Greig. (1809) The antiquarian and topographical cabinet: containing a series of elegant views of the most interesting objects of curiosity in Great Britain, with letter-press descriptions, Volume 5. London: W. Clarke.
  • Thompson, M. W. (1991) The Rise of the Castle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-08853-4.
  • Valentine, L. (1893) Picturesque England: its landmarks and historical haunts as described in lay and legend, song and story. F. Warne.
  • Wedgwood, C. V. (1970) The King's War: 1641–1647. London: Fontana.
  • Weir, Alison. (2006) Queen Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England. London: Pimlico Books. ISBN 978-1-84505-970-5.
  • Wright, Thomas. (1852) The history of Ludlow and its neighbourhood: forming a popular sketch of the history of the Welsh border. London: Longman.
  • Wordsworth, William. (2005) The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. Cirencester: Echo Library. ISBN 978-1-84637-482-1
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