Fforest Wood Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

Fforest Wood Castle

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Cregrina; Forest Wood Mount

In the community of Glascwm.
In the historic county of Radnorshire.
Modern authority of Powys.
Preserved county of Powys.

OS Map Grid Reference: SO10075289
Latitude 52.16702° Longitude -3.31596°

Fforest Wood Castle has been described as a certain Timber Castle.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

A ditched motte, 29m in diameter and 4.0-7.0m high, to the S an area, 30m by 15m, between two steep gullies, is delimited by an artificial scarp to the S. (Coflein)

Motte. 29m base dia. 9m top dia. 4m high on n and 7m on s. lies at river confluence at foot of NW facing slope. bailey some 30m by 15m lies to S. wrongly recorded as tumulus by OS, 1964. No sign of a bailey of E and W sides, (Cadw 1998). (Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust HER)

The monument comprises the remains of a motte and bailey castle, a military stronghold built during the medieval period. A motte and bailey castle comprises a large conical or pyramidal mound of soil or stone (the motte) surrounded by, or adjacent to, one or more embanked enclosures (the bailey). Both may be surrounded by wet or dry ditches and could be further strengthened with palisades, revetments, and/or a tower on top of the motte. The Forest Wood site lies at the foot of a north-west facing slope at a river confluence. It consists of a motte, measuring c.29m in diameter at the base, which stands c.4m high on the uphill (south-eastern) side and c.7m high on the downhill side, and is surrounded by a ditch. To its south lies a bailey measuring c.30m by c.15m, defined on its east and west sides by natural gullies and on the south by an artificial scarp. (Scheduling Report)

Comments

The location is not strategic but probably would control the easiest access onto the summer highland grazing. The site might represent a hafod (summer residence) or hunting lodge (Forest being originally a term for land preserved for hunting, not woodland)

Sources of information, references and further reading

The CADW scheduled monument record number is RD075.
The National Monument Record (Coflein) number(s) for this site is/are 306116.
The County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) for this site is/are 2124.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- CastlesFortsBattle.co.uk
Books
- Remfry, P., 2008, The Castles and History of Radnorshire (SCS Publishing)
  Morgan, Gerald, 2008, Castles in Wales: A Handbook (Talybont: Y Lolfa Cyf.) p. 250 (listed)
  Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles of Mid Wales (Malvern) p. 61
  Remfry, P., 1996, Castles of Radnorshire (Logaston Press) p. 128
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 407
  RCAHMW, 1913, An inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Radnorshire (HMSO) p. 38-9 no. 142 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Hogg, A.H.A. and King, D.J.C., 1963, 'Early castles in Wales and the Marches: a preliminary list' Archaeologia Cambrensis Vol. 112 p. 77-124
  Renn, D.F., 1959, 'Mottes: a classification' Antiquity Vol. 33 p. 106-12

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 the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales, the four welsh archaeological trusts and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain Designated Historic Asset Descriptive Information from The Welsh Historic Environment Service (Cadw), 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.

Lidar coverage in the UK is not complete. The button above will give an idea of the area of coverage. Higher resolution lidar images in both DSM and DTM form may be available from Lle A geo-Portal for Wales (click the preview tag to bring up a map and then select format byclicking on the small blue diamond in the top right corner of the map.)

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.

This record last updated 20/04/2017 04:43:24

¤¤¤¤¤

Data >	Coflein	County HER	Scheduling
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	Historic Wales	V. O. B.	Geology	LIDAR
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio