A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE EwYAS Harold Castle projecting towards the south-east, 80 ft. above the streams shown in plan, at the point where they unite, but with much higher land west of the work. The position is partially defended on the east and south by the fall of the hill, but is naturally weak on the west, where the land continues to rise, hence it is upon that side we find the strong mount placed. The entrench- ments consist of a mount, some 53 ft. above the lowest part of its base, protected by a ditch on its north-west side ; se- condly of a base-court or bailey of consider- able size, defended by a steep scarp, possibly once strengthened throughout by a stone wall or ram- part, remains of the lat- ter existing in parts as shown. The castle has long since been robbed of all the masonry which once replaced its original timber walls. G. T. Clark gives a description of the works and states : ' There are some mounds between the castle and the brooks, possibly thrown up on the occasion of some attack by the enemy.'*' Ewyas Harold Castle is of special importance to antiquaries and his- torians who are interested in the question of the date of mount and court strongholds, for it is one of the very few such earthworks proved to have existed before the Conquest. In Domesday we read of ' castellum Ewias,' that William Fitz Osbern ' hoc castellum refirmaverat.' Mr. J. H. Round has shown the identity of the castle referred to in Domesday with Pentecost's mentioned in the Saxon chronicle under the date 1052.*' Thus we have evidence of the existence of Ewyas in the time of Edward the Confessor, in whose reign probably it was erected. Hereford : The Castle. — It is greatly to be regretted that so little remains to this day of the castle of Hereford, ' one of the strongest, most advanced, and most important fortresses upon the Welsh March, and one which, being posted in a very fertile and open district, was peculiarly offensive to, and very liable to attacks of, the Welsh people.'" The few remains " Mediaeval MiRtat-y Architecture (1884), ii, 41. " Clark, Mediaeval Military Architecture (1884), ii, 115. 238 Hereford Castle " Feud. Engl. 324.
