Comfort Castle, Leominster (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Comforte; Castle Comfort; Eaton Hill Wood; Comfordt; Comfor

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

OS Map Grid Reference: SO50655958
Latitude 52.23221° Longitude -2.72401°

Comfort Castle, Leominster has been described as a probable Timber Castle.

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains.

Description

Mound with ditch on Eaton Hill. Aerial Photographs show an extensive area of disturbed ground at SO50655938. Either or both possibly the site of 'Comforte castle' described by Leland. PastScape record reads "The alleged site of Comfort Castle. It was not located during field investigation in 1970."

Said to have existed during Saxon era in the immediate neighbourhood of Leominster. Leland "the common fame of people about Leo is that K Merwald & some of his successors had castle or palace on hillside by town, half a mile off by E, now called Comfort Castle, where now be some tokens of ditches where buildings have been. Townspeople & others thereabouts come once a yr to sport & play". Blount tells that by close of following century trad touching castle was almost worn out & yearly sports discontinued. But that place pointed out must in all likelihood be mount that overlooks Hay Lane & in truth that great ridge of hills now in possession of Wallop Brabazones was anc called Castle of Comfort Hills & were heretofore given for maintenance of chantry priest in Ludlow. Mound with ditch on top of Eaton Hill, above The Ridgeway house. On the west side there is a good ditch, about 1.5m deep, which is steep sided and where the geology sandstone outcrops and can be seen on the ditch side. Mound is about 5m to 6m high. On top there is a ruined building of stone, with carved lintels. Lead, brick, iron working and corrugated iron also can be seen in the ruin. Oaks of about 100 years grow on the edge. Local knowledge says that some of the more modern material was constructed by the son of a local landowner in the early C20. On the east side there is C20 cement lined reservoir that has dug away part of the mound. Possibly it is a folly, though it is not certain to which house it belongs. It seems likely that if it was a folly it was built on an earlier motte. Also intruded into the site is a water supply for Eaton Hill house. Painting by local artist in 1962 shows walls still standing. (Herefordshire SMR)

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 110682.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 5248.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Herefordshire Through Time
Books
- Shoesmith, Ron, 2009 (Rev edn.), Castles and Moated Sites of Herefordshire (Logaston Press) p. 195-6
  Salter, Mike, 2002, Index and Amendments to Mike Salter's English Castles Books (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 3 (slight)
  Stirling-Brown, R., 1989, Herefordshire Castles (privately published) p. 11
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 214 (rejected as legendary)
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Robinson, C.J., 1869, The Castles of Herefordshire and Their Lords (London: Longman) p. 31 online copy
Periodical Articles
- 1966, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 1 p. 1
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Botzum, R. and Reeves, N.C. (eds), 1997, The 1675 Thomas Blount Manuscript History of Herefordshire p. 18
  Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 221, 224
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1908, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 2 p. 68, 75 online copy

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Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
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