Garnstone Motte (The Gatehouse Record)

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

OS Map Grid Reference: SO40445008
Latitude 52.14552° Longitude -2.87163°

Garnstone Motte has been described as a Timber Castle although is doubtful that it was such.

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains.

Description

Large circular flat topped mound, ditch around, poss outside bank to N, to S of house. Slight R and F in field but not clear relationship. No obvious bailey, but disturbance of ground to SE. Could be part of park landscaping (1 tree on top) but seems overly large for this. (Herefordshire SMR)

Possible motte and bailey castle is close to site of later Garnstone Castle. There is a low motte with traces of baileys to east and west. It is on top of a slope so ditches could never have been wet. The site may have been landscaped as part of the gardens of the last house (Shoesmith)

Comments

In grounds of Nash designed mansion demolished in 1958. Isolated from modern settlement, and position not strategic. The site is probably within the deerpark of Weobley Castle. The mound and associated earthworks (which can not be certainly identified as a bailey) could be any number of things, including post-medieval landscaping, medieval house site, medieval landscaping feature. This close to the major castle of Weobley the least likely explanation would seem to be a motte and bailey although the form on the air photo is remarkably like that of a motte and bailey. A detailed historical examination of the size and extent of the deer park in the C12 and of tenurial history of the area may provide interesting. Was this the site of a small medieval manor, incorporated into the Weobley estate, but maintaining some identity which allowed it to later re-emerge as Garnstone Castle.

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 10098; 12526.

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. 284-5
  Robinson, C.J., 1872, A History of the Mansions and Manors of Herefordshire (Logaston Press, 2001 reprint) p. 291-2
Periodical Articles
- 1995, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 64 p. 25-6 (plan)

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.

Data >		County HER
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