The Welsh Marches possess one of the richest collections of mediaeval monuments to survive in England. The entity is a creation of the Norman Conquest, and was a means of establishing a series of powerful earldoms from which the subjugation of Wales could be effected.

Unusually, it is an area where one can pick out examples from every important post-Conquest phase of castle and church building, from the exceptionally early great hall at Chepstow castle to Sir William Herbert’s stunning late fifteenth-century remodelling of Raglan.

As conceived by William the Conqueror, the March consisted of three earldoms – Herefordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire – with William Fitz-Osbern, Earl of Hereford and Roger de Montgomerie in Shropshire being initially the most active of the earls.

The Normans settled this land by creating an interlocking series of castles, markets and churches, exemplified in the great new towns of Monmouth, Chepstow, Ludlow and Bridgnorth, along with a complementary network of monasteries at sites such as Chepstow, Abergavenny and Wenlock. By the early twelfth century, smaller castellans – sub-tenants like Hugh the Forester at Kilpeck – were beginning to build stone parish churches, and a significant element of the tour are the sumptuously decorated Romanesque churches created by the sculptors of the Herefordshire School at Rowlstone, Kilpeck and Rock.

The second of the tour’s themes is aesthetic, and concerned with the type of architecture that developed in the thirteenth century. As with much of southern England, Worcestershire and the Welsh Marches experienced a large-scale rebuilding during the period c. 1220–c. 1300 – the greatest evidence for which is to be found in the monastic churches at Tintern, Abbey Dore, Wenlock Priory, and Haughmond. Along with Worcester Cathedral, these constitute some of the most inventive buildings of mediaeval England, immeasurably enhanced by the remarkable survival of their secular counterparts at Stokesay and Acton Burnell.