Hereford Castle

[1] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded the incident: And they gathered a great force with the Irishmen and the Welsh: and Earl Ralph collected a great army against them at the town of Hereford; where they met; but ere there was a spear thrown the English people fled, because they were on horses.

They went then to the town, and burned it utterly; and the large minster also which the worthy Bishop Athelstan had caused to be built, that they plundered and bereft of relic and of reef, and of all things whatever; and the people they slew, and led some away.

[8] In 1140 during the Anarchy Geoffrey Talbot and Miles of Gloucester captured the castle from the garrison supporting King Stephen.

The Gesta Stephani recorded the event: everywhere the townsmen were uttering cries of lamentation, either because the earth of their kinfolk's graveyard was being heaped up to form a rampart and they could see, a cruel sight, the bodies of parents and relations, some half-rotten, some quite lately buried, pitilessly dragged from the depths; or because at one time it was visible that catapults were being put up[9]Geoffrey Talbot and Miles of Gloucester set up siege engines so that the castle was attacked from two directions, and the garrison eventually surrendered.

[13] During the Civil War Herefordshire was very much a Royalist stronghold but the castle does not appear to have played a significant part, although the city changed hands several times and was subjected to an unsuccessful Scottish siege in 1645.

[14] According to John Leland, the antiquary, in the early 16th century the castle at Hereford was once "nearly as large as that of Windsor' and 'one of the fairest and strongest in all England".