Caus Castle

The outer earthworks on the hill are probably an Iron Age hillfort; the motte-and-bailey set within them is Norman. Roger le Corbet was granted several Shropshire manors by William the Conqueror in 1069 as the Barony of Caus, for his part in the Norman Conquest, and the barony took its name from his Normandy estate in the Pays de Caux. The Corbets owed fealty to Roger de Montgomery, first Earl of Shrewsbury, to help control the Welsh Marches, with absolute control over their own demesne. Roger le Corbet built Caus Castle in the late 11th century on the eastern foothills of the Long Mountain, guarding the route from Shrewsbury to Montgomery: a high motte with a very small summit carrying a tower, and a strongly defended inner bailey.

The castle was important enough that the Crown took an interest in its maintenance. Henry II had it garrisoned in 1165. The Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great, born in 1173, is believed to have spent part of his childhood at Caus after his widowed mother Marared remarried into the Corbet family. In 1198 Roger Corbet rebuilt the tower, keep and curtain wall in stone.

During the late 12th century a town or borough was founded in the large outer bailey. A royal grant of 50 marks was made in 1263 towards further building work, when D-shaped towers were added to the curtain wall. The town had a church of St Margaret alongside the castle's own church of St Nicholas, and the names of two of its thoroughfares, Castle Street and St Margaret Street, are recorded. On the death of Beatrice Corbet in 1347 Caus passed to the Earl of Stafford. At its height the borough had 58 burgesses resident in 1349, a year coinciding with the arrival of the Black Death in England.

Caus, spelt also Caux or Cause, was garrisoned against the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr by the seneschal Griffith ap Ieuan ap Madoc ap Gwenwys, who, following calls from Welsh graduates in law and students at the University of Oxford, changed sides and supported Glyndŵr. His family lands and his role at Caus were forfeited in 1404. Henry V restored them in 1419, after the seneschal's sons Ieuan ap Griffith and Sir Gruffudd Vychan captured John Oldcastle for Lord Charlton of Powys.

On 10 August 1443, at Caus Castle, Sir Gruffudd Vychan pierced with a lance the heart of his master Sir Christopher Talbot, son of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and champion tilter of England. The death of the young knight was not regarded as an accident: Vychan was outlawed, a reward of 500 marks, £166 6s 8d, was offered for his capture, and his lands were passed to John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley.

The Earls and Barons Stafford rarely used the castle in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was recorded in great decay in 1521 and had only two resident tenants in 1541, though Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford of the fourth creation, is recorded as having died there in 1563; he was buried at Worthen. A 15th-century wooden screen from Caus was later installed at Minsterley Hall, built by the Thynne family in 1581.

The castle was given as part of a marriage settlement to John Thynne, who died in 1604, and Joan, née Hayward, an arrangement Edward Stafford, 3rd Baron Stafford, disputed. After John and Joan forcibly ejected Stafford from Caus in 1591, Joan lived at the castle while John was based at Longleat in Wiltshire, and the letters between them illustrate their partnership; she appears to have managed many aspects of the estate. She is also credited with defending Caus, keeping guns and gunpowder in her bedroom.

Caus fell as a minor Royalist garrison in June 1645, was destroyed during the English Civil War, and was finally deserted. Katherine Lowther is nonetheless said to have been born at Caus Castle in 1653, a daughter of Sir Henry Thynne, 1st Baronet, and Mary Coventry, herself a daughter of Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry. The site, in the parish of Westbury, was scheduled as a monument on 17 October 1930.