Clifford Castle
Encyclopedia
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
in the village of Clifford
Clifford, Herefordshire
Clifford is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, four miles to the north of Hay-on-Wye. It lies on the south bank of the River Wye, which here forms the border between Wales and England....
which lies four miles to the north of Hay-on-Wye
Hay-on-Wye
Hay-on-Wye , often described as "the town of books", is a small market town and community in Powys, Wales.-Location:The town lies on the east bank of the River Wye and is within the Brecon Beacons National Park, just north of the Black Mountains...
in the Wye Valley
Wye Valley
The Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is an internationally important protected landscape straddling the border between England and Wales. It is one of the most dramatic and scenic landscape areas in southern Britain....
in Herefordshire
Herefordshire
Herefordshire is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the...
, England .
Early Norman castle and planned settlement
The early motte and bailey castleCastle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
was built on a cliff overlooking a ford
Ford (crossing)
A ford is a shallow place with good footing where a river or stream may be crossed by wading or in a vehicle. A ford is mostly a natural phenomenon, in contrast to a low water crossing, which is an artificial bridge that allows crossing a river or stream when water is low.The names of many towns...
on the River Wye
River Wye
The River Wye is the fifth-longest river in the UK and for parts of its length forms part of the border between England and Wales. It is important for nature conservation and recreation.-Description:...
in 1070 by William FitzOsbern
William Fitzosbern, 1st Earl of Hereford
William FitzOsbern , Lord of Breteuil, in Normandy, was a relative and close counsellor of William the Conqueror and one of the great magnates of early Norman England...
. The castle was intended to provide protection for a planned Norman settlement above the River Wye of quite a substantial size, with c. 200 plots being intended, running uphill for half a mile towards Llanfair, where the church was sited on the hilltop. St Mary's church remains today, much altered in the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. It has a wooden 13th century effigy
Effigy
An effigy is a representation of a person, especially in the form of sculpture or some other three-dimensional form.The term is usually associated with full-length figures of a deceased person depicted in stone or wood on church monuments. These most often lie supine with hands together in prayer,...
of what appears to be a clerical figure. It has been said to resemble another effigy, of Bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
Peter of Aigueblanche
Peter of Aigueblanche
Peter of Aigueblanche was a medieval Bishop of Hereford. A nobleman from Savoy, he came to England as part of the party accompanying King Henry III's bride Eleanor of Provence. He entered the royal service, becoming bishop in 1241...
, in Hereford Cathedral
Hereford Cathedral
The current Hereford Cathedral, located at Hereford in England, dates from 1079. Its most famous treasure is Mappa Mundi, a mediæval map of the world dating from the 13th century. The cathedral is a Grade I listed building.-Origins:...
.
A short distance downhill from Llanfair is Priory Farm, built on the site of a Cluniac Priory
Priory
A priory is a house of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or religious sisters , or monasteries of monks or nuns .The Benedictines and their offshoots , the Premonstratensians, and the...
, believed to have been founded in 1130. Priory Farm is a very substantial farm building and presumably used much of the stone already on the site in its construction. It is also surrounded by stone wall field boundaries.
In the Domesday Survey the settlement was recorded as Cliford. Maps from three centuries later show Herefordshire having three significant settlements; Hereford
Hereford
Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...
, Wigmore and Clifford.
The position of the castle adjacent to the River Wye
River Wye
The River Wye is the fifth-longest river in the UK and for parts of its length forms part of the border between England and Wales. It is important for nature conservation and recreation.-Description:...
enabled the seasonal flooding of the river to fill the flood plain around the castle, forming a shallow lake or marsh with the assistance of a dam on the western or upstream side of the site.
Changing hands
When his heir, Roger de Breteuil, 2nd Earl of HerefordRoger de Breteuil, 2nd Earl of Hereford
Roger de Breteuil, 2nd Earl of Hereford , succeeded to the earldom of Hereford and the English estate of William Fitz-Osbern in 1071.- Disobeying King William :...
, forfeited his lands for rebellion against the King in 1075, the castle was granted to Ralph Tosny who held it directly from the Crown. From Ralph, it passed to his son-in-law Richard des Ponts (more correctly Richard Fitz Pons
Richard Fitz Pons
Richard Fitz Pons was an Anglo-Norman nobleman, active as a marcher lord on the border with Wales.He is described as a follower of Bernard de Neufmarche, and probably first builder of Bronllys Castle. He started construction at Llandovery Castle in 1116...
). Richard's son Walter Fitz Richard later took the name of Walter de Clifford
Walter de Clifford
Walter I de Clifford was an Anglo-Norman marcher lord of Bronllys Castle on the Welsh border, and Clifford Castle , in Herefordshire...
after he seized the castle from its Tosny overlord before 1162. Much of the stone castle would seem to have been built before 1162 as it much resembles the Tosny Conches Castle in Normandy.
The King's mistress
Clifford Castle was the home of Walter Fitz Richard's daughter Rosamund CliffordRosamund Clifford
Rosamund Clifford , often called "The Fair Rosamund" or the "Rose of the World", was famed for her beauty and was a mistress of King Henry II of England, famous in English folklore....
, who was also known as the Fair Rosamund. She was the mistress of Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
until her death in 1176 or 1177 when she was buried at Godstow
Godstow
Godstow is a hamlet on the River Thames about northwest of the centre of Oxford. The ruins of Godstow Abbey, or Godstow Nunnery, are here.-The Abbey:...
in Oxfordshire. A property near the castle is called Rosamund House today.
The Clifford Rebellion
In 1233 Walter III de CliffordWalter III de Clifford
Walter III de Clifford was a Welsh Marcher Lord during the reign of King John of England.Walter II de Clifford was a Welsh Marcher Lord and High Sheriff in England, son of Walter I de Clifford ....
the grandson of Walter Fitz Richard rebelled against the autocratic rule of King Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
. In early September the king came and besieged Clifford castle, forcing the garrison to surrender after just a few days. Walter Clifford then made his peace with the Crown and led his troops against Prince Llywelyn ab Iorwerth his father-in-law. Walter's volte-face was even more disreputable as Prince Llywelyn had just entered the field to fight the king in support of Walter. Twenty years later Walter nearly rebelled again, when, in a fit of anger, he forced a royal messenger to eat a royal writ, together with the royal wax seal the size of a dinner plate. For this Walter lost many of his Marcher Lord privileges.
The ruins
Clifford castle now consists of a great motte as constructed by the men of William Fitz Osbern in the late 1060s. This was later sub-divided and the eastern part was crowned by an ovoid shell keepShell keep
A shell keep is a style of medieval fortification, best described as a stone structure circling the top of a motte.In English castle morphology, shell keeps are perceived as the successors to motte-and-bailey castles, with the wooden fence around the top of the motte replaced by a stone wall...
with five D-shaped towers in its circuit. Its north wall appears to overlie part of William Fitz Osbern’s original hall. To the east of the motte is the castle bailey. Most of the walls of this structure have disappeared, but centrally are the remains of a great twin-towered gatehouse
Gatehouse
A gatehouse, in architectural terminology, is a building enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a castle, manor house, fort, town or similar buildings of importance.-History:...
probably of the mid-thirteenth century. To the west of the castle is a broken earthwork dam which would have flooded the valley to the south of the castle. With the River Wye to the north the fortress would have been surrounded by water on all sides except for the east. As such it would have been a very difficult fortress to take by storm. Clifford Castle is within the grounds of a family home and has no public access.
Destruction
During the rebellion of Owain GlyndŵrOwain Glyndwr
Owain Glyndŵr , or Owain Glyn Dŵr, anglicised by William Shakespeare as Owen Glendower , was a Welsh ruler and the last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales...
the castle was destroyed in 1402 by Welsh
Wales in the Late Middle Ages
Wales in the Late Middle Ages covers the period from the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd in late 1282 to the incorporation of Wales into the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542.-Death of Llywelyn:...
forces.