Untitled Document

Glossary

Sources

Kingsland Castle.

SMR NO. 340 GRID REF: SO 4450 6125

The parish of Kingsland is situated some 5.5km NW of Leominster. The castle mound can be found just to the west of the parish church of St. Michael’s. The name Kingsland means ’the royal estate in Leen’, and leen is Welsh for ‘district of the streams’. (Herefordshire Place Names - Copleston-Crow, BAR British Series 214, 1989)

Description of the site today.

The site contains an oval motte with bailey to the East, about 56m across at its greatest extent. It rises to a height of 5m to the West. There is a ditch between the motte and the bailey to the North and East. A transverse ditch subdivides the bailey. There are traces of ditches to the NW and NE of the bailey.

The motte contains a large hollow on the top edge of the NW side. Stones are showing where the grass is worn, these display the partially buried foundations of an octagonal shell keep, with 7-8 angle towers. Traces of a bridge abutment and barbican to the keep can also be made out. There is an outlet to the moat in the SW corner and a stream on the South side.

Left: A view of the bailey at Kingsland Castle

In the bailey mole tumps frequently expose white plasters and mortar. Some pottery of the early 12^th Century to late 14^th Century has also been discovered.

History of the castle and site.

Kingsland is said to have been the site of a palace of the Dark Age King Merewald, and up to the 19^th Century the adjoining meadow was known as Merwold Croft.

After the Conquest the area belonged to the king, hence the name of the parish.

1135: The parish had been given by Henry I to Philip de Braose of Radnor, the castle was probably founded about this time.

1216: King John apparently stayed at Kingsland when he was wasting the lands of the DeBraose.

1538: Leland the king’s antiquary noted that: ‘there was a castle at Kyngsland… the ditches wherof and parte of the keep be yet seen by the west parte of Kyngsland church.’ There is now no visible sign of the keep or any other castle construction.

It is thought that De Braose built the castle in the 1130’s. It cannot have been a seat of importance by the mid 1400’s as it is not mentioned in the nearby battle of Mortimers Cross, which was fought between the houses of York and Lancaster in the battle for the throne.

There is no mention of the castle in Public Records, but there is also the possibility that the Mortimer’s may have erected a fortified residence upon Saxon foundations.