Goodrich Castle is a ruined medieval castle north of the village of Goodrich in Herefordshire, England, controlling a key location between Monmouth and Ross-on-Wye. It was praised by William Wordsworth as the "noblest ruin in Herefordshire"Hull and Whitehorne, p. 37. 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".Pettifer, p. 96.
Goodrich Castle was probably begun by Godric of Mappestone after the Norman Conquest 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 Parliamentary and then Royalist forces in the English Civil War of the 1640s, Goodrich was finally successfully besieged by Colonel John Birch in 1646 with the help of the huge "Roaring Meg" mortar, 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
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, Ross-on-Wye, about from Hereford and from Ross-on-Wye.Storer and Greig, 1809. The castle guards the line of the former Roman road from Gloucester to Caerleon as it crosses from England into Wales.Creighton, p. 43.
At the heart of the castle is an early Norman square keep of light grey sandstone, with Norman windows and pilaster buttresses.Pettifer, p. 96; Hull and Whitehorne, p. 37. Although the keep had thick walls, its relatively small size – the single chambers on each floor measure only internallyThompson, p. 65. – would have made it more useful for defence than for day-to-day living.Ashbee, p. 17. 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. 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.
Around the keep is an essentially square structure guarded by three large towers, all built during the 1280s from somewhat darker sandstone. On the more vulnerable southern and eastern sides of the castle, ditches 27 metres (90 ft) long and 9 metres (28 ft) deep have been cut into the rock,Hull, p. 54. exploiting a natural fissure. 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.Pettifer, pp. 96–7; Thompson, p. 114.
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. 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.Pettifer, p. 97; Ashbee, p. 5 comments on the use of the same royal workmen. The barbican today is only half of its original height, and includes its own gate, designed to trap intruders within the inner defences.Hull, p. 64. 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.Alington, p. 36; Thompson, p. 133; Pound, p. 240; Ashbee, p. 11. The 15th-century window frame itself replaced an even taller, earlier 13th-century window.Ashbee, p. 7. The chapel's west window is modern, and commemorates the British scientists, engineers and servicemen involved in radar development who died between 1936 and 1976.The link between the castle and radar development is due to flight VS9977, which crashed near Goodrich Castle in 1942 whilst testing the advanced H2S radar system, killing the famous British scientist Alan Blumlein and several others. The altar itself is particularly old, possibly pre-dating the castle.Alington, p. 36.
The bailey was designed to include a number of spacious domestic buildings. These include a great hall, a solarium, kitchen, buttery and pantry,Pettifer, p. 97. with a luxuriously large number of garderobes and fireplaces.Emery, p. 32. The large towers provided additional accommodation. The design of the domestic buildings was skilfully interlocked to support the defensive arrangements of the bailey. The great hall for example, , 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. Water for the castle was originally raised from the courtyard well, but was later piped in from a spring across the valley;Alington, p. 36; Ashbee p. 22. the castle kitchens had acquired running water by the beginning of the 17th century. 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.Emery, p. 477.
Beyond the main bailey walls lies the stable block, now ruined but with a visible cobble floor.Emery, p. 688. The stables and the north and west sides of the castle were protected by another, smaller curtain wall, but this is now largely ruined.Ashbee, p. 24. Accounts suggest that the original stables could hold around 60 horses, although by the 17th century they had been expanded to accommodate more.Ashbee, p. 25.
History
Medieval History
11th and 12th Centuries
Goodrich Castle appears to have been in existence by 1101, when it was known as Godric's Castle, named probably after Godric of Mappestone, a local Anglo-Saxon thane and landowner mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. Victorian historians, however, believed the castle to date back further to the pre-Norman conquest days of King Canute,Fielding, p. 61; Brayley and Tombleson, p. 2. and the site may have been among a small number of Saxon fortifications along the Welsh border.Wright, p. 85. By Norman times, Goodrich formed part of the Welsh Marches, a sequence of territories granted to Norman nobles in, and alongside, Wales. Although Goodrich lay on the safer, English side of the border, the threat of raids and attacks continued throughout most of the period.Emery, p. 474.
During the 12th century the attitudes of the English nobility towards the Welsh began to harden; the policies of successive rulers, but especially Henry II, began to become more aggressive in the region.Danziger and Gillingham, pp. 217–232. In the mid-12th century Godric's original earth and timber fortification was dismantled and replaced by a tall but relatively small square keep built of stone, sometimes known as "Macbeth's Tower". The keep was designed to be secure and imposing but relatively cheap to build.Ashbee, p. 30. It is uncertain, however, precisely who was responsible for this rebuilding or the date of the work, which may have been between 1120 and 1176.Ashbee, p. 16.
At the beginning of the 12th century, the castle had passed from Godric to William Fitz Baderon, thought to be his son-in-law, and on to his son, Baderon of Monmouth, in the 1120s.Ashbee, p. 29. England descended into anarchy, however, during the 1130s as the rival factions of Stephen and his cousin the Empress Matilda vied for power. Baderon of Monmouth married Rohese de Clare, a member of the powerful de Clare family who usually supported Stephen, and there are records of Baderon having to seize Goodrich Castle during the fighting in the region, which was primarily held by supporters of Matilda.Pettifer, p. 96; Ashbee, p. 29. Some suspect that Baderon may have therefore built the stone keep in the early years of the conflict.Radford notes Fitz Baderon making grants of lands associated with the castle in 1144, p. 3. Stephen went on, however, to appoint Baderon's brother-in-law, Gilbert de Claire, the Earl of Pembroke, and Gilbert de Clare eventually acquired Goodrich Castle himself. Gilbert's son, Richard de Clare, known as "Strongbow", succeeded him in 1148, and Richard is another candidate for the construction of the keep. In 1154 Richard fell out of favour with King Henry II because of the de Clares' support for Stephen, and the castle was taken into royal hands. Some argue that the king himself may have ordered the construction of the great keep.
13th and 14th Centuries
During the following reigns of King Richard I and his brother John, the castle and manor were held by the Crown. King John, however, lost many of his lands in France which in turn deprived key English nobles of their own estatesJohn became concerned about possible opposition to his rule. Accordingly, in 1203 John transferred Goodrich Castle and the surrounding manor to William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, to partially compensate him for his lost lands on the continent.Crouch, p. 93. Marshal was a famous English knight with reputation as a heroic warrior, and he expanded Goodrich by building an additional towered curtain wall in stone, around the existing keep. Marshal had to intervene to protect Goodrich Castle from Welsh attack, most famously in 1216 when he was obliged to leave Henry III's coronation feast in Gloucester to hurry back to Goodrich to reinforce the castle.Ashbee, p. 31.
Marshal's sons inherited the castle after their father's death; Marshal left the castle to his eldest son, William, who in turn gave it to his younger brother, Walter. After William's death, however, Marshal's second son, Richard, took over the castle. Richard led the baronial opposition to Henry III and allied himself with the Welsh, resulting in King Henry besieging Goodrich Castle in 1233 and retaking personal control for a period. Walter was eventually given Goodrich back once more, but died shortly afterwards in 1245.Ashbee, p. 32.
The castle briefly reverted to the Crown again, but in 1247 passed by marriage to William de Valence, half brother to Henry III.Pettifer, p. 96; Emery, p. 539. De Valence was a French nobleman from Poitiers and a noted soldier who spent most of his life fighting in military campaigns; Henry arranged his marriage to Joan de Munchensi, one of the heiresses to the Marshal estate. The marriage made Valence immensely rich and gave him the title of Earl of Pembroke.
The Welsh border situation remained unsettled however, and in the decades after 1250 security grew significantly worse, as the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd conducted numerous raids into English territories. The Wye valley and Goodrich were particularly affected by these raids.Pettifer, p. 96; Emery, p. 57, p. 474.