Ewyas Harold Castle was a castle in the village of Ewyas Harold in Herefordshire, England.
Ewyas Harold Castle was a castle in the village of Ewyas Harold in Herefordshire, England.
The first castle on the site is believed to be one of the very few which were built under the Saxons before the Norman conquest. This structure was likely raised in 1048, possibly by Osbern Pentecost, on the site of an earlier fortification, likely a Saxon burg built during the 10th century. It was a motte and bailey castle overlooking the Dulas Brook. In 1052 the original castle was destroyed, either on the orders of Earl Godwin or by the Welsh in a raid.
Following the Norman conquest and invasion of the area the castle was rebuilt by William Fitz Osbern, Earl of Hereford. In 1086, the Domesday Book recorded:
In the jurisdiction of the castle of Ewyas Harold, Roger holds of Henry three churches and a priest and 32 acres (130,000 m2) of land and they render two sesters of honey. In the castle he has two messuages. [1]
In 1100 a priory was founded within the bailey of the castle.
The castle fell into partial decay until the early 15th century. It was then in the possession of William Beauchamp, Lord Abergavenny, who refortified it in the face of the threat from Owain Glyndŵr. There is no record of it being attacked at this time. Owain and his various forces focused their attention on strategies and opportunities elsewhere.
The castle again fell into ruin by 1645, [2] and today only earthworks remain on the edge of the village to mark where it once stood.
William the Conqueror, sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy from 1035 onward. By 1060, following a long struggle to establish his throne, his hold on Normandy was secure. In 1066, following the death of Edward the Confessor, William invaded England, leading an army of Normans to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands, and by difficulties with his eldest son, Robert Curthose.
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Shropshire was established during the division of Saxon Mercia into shires in the 10th century. It is first mentioned in 1006. After the Norman Conquest it experienced significant development, following the granting of the principal estates of the county to eminent Normans, such as Roger De Montgomery and his son Robert de Bellême.
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The Norman invasion of Wales began shortly after the Norman conquest of England under William the Conqueror, who believed England to be his birthright. Initially (1067–1081), the invasion of Wales was not undertaken with the fervour and purpose of the invasion of England. However, a much stronger Norman invasion began in 1081 and by 1094 most of Wales was under the control of William's son and heir, the later King William II. The Welsh greatly disliked the "gratuitously cruel" Normans, and by 1101, had regained control of the greater part of their country under the long reign of King Gruffudd ap Cynan, who had been imprisoned by the Normans for twelve years before his escape.
Ewyas Harold is a village and civil parish in the Golden Valley in Herefordshire, England, near the Wales-England border about halfway between Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, and Hereford. The population of this civil parish at the 2011 census was 883. It lies on the Dulas brook, and is contiguous with the neighbouring village of Pontrilas.
Monmouth Castle is a castle close to the centre of the town of Monmouth, the county town of Monmouthshire, on a hill above the River Monnow in south-east Wales.
Ewyas was a possible early Welsh kingdom which may have been formed around the time of the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century. The name was later used for a much smaller commote or administrative sub-division, which covered the area of the modern Vale of Ewyas and a larger area to the east including the villages of Ewyas Harold and Ewyas Lacy.
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Richard's Castle is a village, castle and two civil parishes on the border of the counties of Herefordshire and Shropshire in England. The Herefordshire part of the parish had a population of 250 at the 2011 Census, the Shropshire part, 424.
Sir Osbern Pentecost was a Norman knight who followed Edward the Confessor to England upon Edward's return from exile in Normandy in 1041.
William Devereux was an Anglo-Norman nobleman living during the reigns of kings William I, William II, and Henry I of England. The Devereux, along with the Baskervilles and Pichards, were prominent knightly families along the Welsh marches at the beginning of the twelfth century, and linked to the Braose and Lacy lordships of the region. William Devereux's descendants would later give rise to the Devereux family of Hereford, and the Devereux Viscounts of Hereford and Earls of Essex.
Snodhill Castle is a ruined motte-and-bailey castle, about 1 mi (1.6 km) south of the village of Dorstone in west Herefordshire, England. It is recognized as one of the major castles of the Welsh Marches. It was built in the 11th century to secure the border between Norman England and the Welsh Princes. Archaeological excavations have found that it was one of the first Norman castles in the country to have stone-built fortifications, with more sophisticated defences being added in later centuries.
51°57′12″N2°53′47″W / 51.95337°N 2.89630°W
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