Bosbury Palace (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Old Court

In the civil parish of Bosbury.
In the historic county of Herefordshire.
Modern Authority of Herefordshire.
1974 county of Hereford and Worcester.
Medieval County of Herefordshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SO69604348
Latitude 52.08921° Longitude -2.44621°

Bosbury Palace has been described as a certain Palace.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This is a Grade 2 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Former manor house of the Bishops of Hereford, now farmhouse. C15 core, with C17 additions, greatly altered during mid-C19. Sandstone earlier wing with brick later alterations, tiled roof. Irregular plan. Early wing aligned east/west facing south, later addition to north extending to east and further to north, large main central stack to south wing, entrances to centre of east front and to rear. Two storeys; east front, gabled end of earlier wing to left with sash window, French casements to the ground floor, later range to right with three windows, tripartite sash window with segmental brick heads, smaller proportions to central window, forward projecting gabled porch with panelled door. Interior: east room of south wing contains fine moulded plaster ceiling, arch braced collar and tie-beam trusses to south wing. (Listed Building Report)

Old Court Farm was formerly a manor house of the Bishops of Hereford. The stone S block of the house is 15th century and to it was added the L-shaped block on the N side, in the early 17th century. This block was perhaps timber-framed, but has been refaced with brick. The gatehouse range faces the road on the E side of the site. It is now of two storeys with a stone outer wall perhaps 14th century and a timber-framed inner wall. The gateway has a major and minor archway. The earthworks, in the field NW of the house consist of a series of banks and ditches. There are traces of ditches also to the E of the house, and the stream bounding the farm enclosure on the N & W appears to have been straightened. (RCHME)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1156835 , 1098920
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 112294.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 303; 7105; 7275 & 20644.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Charles Taylor's ecastles
Books
- Shoesmith, Ron, 2009 (Rev edn.), Castles and Moated Sites of Herefordshire (Logaston Press) p. 57-8
  Salter, Mike, 2000, Castles of Herefordshire and Worcestershire (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 13
  Emery, Anthony, 2000, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 2 East Anglia, Central England and Wales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 512-14
  Keevill, Graham D., 2000, Medieval Palaces, An Archaeology (Stroud; Tempus) p. 86
  Thompson, M.W., 1998, Medieval bishops' houses in England and Wales (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing) p. 177
  1981, Herefordshire Countryside Treasures (Hereford and Worcester County Council) p. 38
  RCHME, 1932, An inventory of the historical monuments in Herefordshire Vol. 2: east p. 19, 20 no. 4 online transcription
  Watkins, J., 1902, Duncomb's Collections towards the History and Antiquities of the County of Hereford, Hundred of Radlow p. 27
  Bentley, Rev S., 1891, History of the Parish of Bosbury
  Robinson, C.J., 1872, A History of the Mansions and Manors of Herefordshire (Logaston Press, 2001 reprint)
  Turner, T.H. and Parker, J.H., 1859, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol. 3 Part 2 p. 377 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Halliwell, Peter (ed), 1994, Herefordshire Archaeology News Vol. 61 p. 35-40
  Tonkin, J.W., 1976, 'The palaces of the bishop of Hereford' Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club Vol. 42.1 p. 53-64
  1971, Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club Vol. 40.2 p. 286
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 228
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1910, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 5 p. 184 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Payne, Naomi, 2003, The medieval residences of the bishops of Bath and Wells, and Salisbury (PhD Thesis University of Bristol) Appendix B: List of Medieval Bishop's Palaces in England and Wales (available via EThOS)
  Morris, R K., 1995, Old Court Farm An Architectural Analysis (City of Hereford Archaeology Unit, in house report)

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER		Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio