The Welsh Marches - Castles, abbeys and parish churches

The Welsh Marches possess one of the richest collections of medieval monuments to survive in Britain – 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 15th-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 such as Chepstow, along with a complementary network of monasteries at sites such as Monmouth, Brecon and Abergavenny. By the early 12th century, smaller castellans – sub-tenants like Hugh the Forester at Kilpeck and the Lacy family at Kempley – were beginning to build stone parish churches, the survival of which constitutes one of the great glories of Herefordshire.

The tour concentrates on the southern March – namely Herefordshire, Monmouthshire and the Severn Valley – though a significant element of the tour is aesthetic, and concerned with the type of architecture developed by the new Norman settlers. As with much of southern England, the Welsh Marches experienced a large-scale rebuilding during the period c. 1080–c. 1200 – but the evidence is much stronger here than in, say, East Anglia. Indeed, the monastic churches of Gloucester and Tewkesbury, along with Hereford cathedral, constitute some of the most inventive buildings of medieval England, immeasurably enhanced by the remarkable survival of their secular counterparts in the castles and manor houses of Chepstow, Goodrich, Raglan and Tretower.