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".

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.

[5] Although the keep had thick walls, its relatively small size – the single chambers on each floor measure only 5.5 by 4.5 metres (18 by 15 ft) internally[6] – would have made it more useful for defence than for day-to-day living.

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.

[14] 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.

[16] The great hall for example, 20 by 9 metres (66 by 30 ft), 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.

[5] Victorian historians, however, believed the castle to date back further to the pre-Norman conquest days of King Canute,[22] and the site may have been among a small number of Saxon fortifications along the Welsh border.

[25] 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,[2] sometimes known as "Macbeth's Tower".

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.

[31] 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.

[33] The castle briefly reverted to the Crown again, but in 1247 passed by marriage to William de Valence, half brother to Henry III.

[35] Accordingly, William de Valence began to build a much larger castle around the original keep from the 1280s onwards, demolishing Marshal's earlier work.

[12] The effect was an early success in converting a fortress into a major dwelling, without damaging its defensive arrangements, and influenced the later castle conversion at Berkeley.

[38] As part of a "sweeping revenge" on their rivals, especially in the Marches, the Despensers illegally seized a wide range of properties, particularly from vulnerable targets such as widows, wives whose husbands were out of favour with the king, or unmarried women.

[39] Upon her inheritance, Hugh Despenser the Younger promptly kidnapped Elizabeth in London and transported her to Herefordshire to be imprisoned in her own castle at Goodrich.

During the 15th century the Talbots considerably expanded the size of the lord's quarters in the castle[15] and provided additional accommodation for servants and retainers.

[46] In 1576 Gilbert Talbot and his wife Mary stayed at Goodrich Castle and sent his father a gift of local produce, a Monmouth cap, Ross boots, and perry.

[48] Goodrich Castle became the scene of one of the most desperate sieges during the English Civil War in the 1640s, which saw the rival factions of Parliament and the King vie for power across England.

[48] Shortly after the outbreak of war, the Earl of Stamford, with support from Tyler, garrisoned the castle for Parliament until December 1643, when increasing Royalist pressure in the region forced his withdrawal to Gloucester.

[50] The occupation was not peaceful, with Royalist troops burning surrounding farm buildings – Tyler himself was imprisoned by Lingen, although not before he had begun to sell off his livestock and other moveable property.

[53] Lingen, with 200 men and 90 horses at Goodrich Castle, conducted raids on Parliamentary forces in the region, representing a continuing challenge.

[55] In 1646, the Parliamentary Colonels John Birch and Robert Kyrle marched south from their successful Siege of Hereford and besieged the castle, with the aim of eliminating one of the few remaining Royalist strongholds.

[56] Birch was unable to press home his advantage however, and over the next few months Lingen succeeded in replacing some of his horses and resumed his attacks on Parliamentary forces.

[55] With the castle still holding out, Colonel Birch built an enormous mortar called "Roaring Meg", able to fire a gunpowder-filled shell 85–90 kilograms (187–198 lb) in weight, in a local forge.

[60] This would probably have succeeded, but Birch brought his mortar forward under the cover of darkness and launched a close-range attack on the tower, which collapsed and buried Lingen's counter-mine.

[26] After the Civil War, Goodrich Castle remained with the Earls of Kent until 1740, when it was sold by Henry Grey to Admiral Thomas Griffin.

Theodore Fielding, an early Victorian historian, noted how the "castle's situation, far from human dwellings, and the stillness which that solitude, insures to its precinct, leaves contemplation to all the solemnity, that is inspired by the sight of grandeur sinking in dignity, into decay".

[66] The Regency and Victorian watercolour artists David Cox and William Callow also captured Goodrich Castle and its landscape in paint, again invoking the picturesque, romantic mood of the setting at the time.

[71] In the early 1820s, the antiquarian Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick attempted to purchase the site, with the aim of converting the castle back into a private dwelling, but was unable to convince the owners to sell.

The current descendants of the family are called the “Van Zuidens” [76] The Roaring Meg mortar, preserved by Herefordshire Council, has been returned to the site, along with a number of civil war cannonballs found at Goodrich during excavations in the 1920s.