Snodhill Castle

The origins of Snodhill are obscure, and two accounts long competed: that a follower of William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford, raised it before 1086, or that Roger de Chandos built it after a land exchange with Malvern Priory in 1127. Recent archaeological investigation has found a very early stone hall keep buried beneath, and incorporated into, the multangular keep on top of the motte, with similarly early curtain walls defining a small triangular bailey. On that evidence the castle is now thought to have had no initial timber phase at all, but to have been built in stone from its foundation in 1067 by FitzOsbern himself, and completed before his death in 1071. FitzOsbern is known to have built other early stone castles, Chepstow the most famous among them, with the stone defences at Monmouth, Clifford and Wigmore supposedly his as well. That makes Snodhill one of the first Norman castles in England to have stone-built fortifications, raised to hold the border between Norman England and the Welsh princes, and it is recognised as one of the major castles of the Welsh Marches.

The whole border area from Chepstow to Shropshire was parcelled up by the Earl and granted to his close supporters, and Snodhill went to Hugh L'Asne before FitzOsbern's death in 1071. L'Asne held it until he died in 1101, when the castle and all his manors passed by marriage to Robert de Chandos I. The first written reference to the castle itself comes in 1142.

The Chandos family held and further developed Snodhill for more than three centuries. The polygonal form of the great tower on the motte has been dated to 1160, close in type to the keep at nearby Richard's Castle, and there are indications of multiple build and repair phases after an early collapse: the base of the tower appears to have been thirteen-sided, while above first-floor level the surviving southern section suggests an irregular ten-sided plan fitted to the motte's summit. A solid drum tower was added at the south-west, possibly in the late 14th or early 15th century, abutting an arched gateway whose arch head survives along with the groove for a portcullis.

In 1401 John Chandos was ordered by Henry IV to refortify his castle against the Welsh revolt of Owain Glyndŵr. Chandos obeyed the king by building a large tower in the castle's main bailey, acting as a second keep, and by thickening the bailey cross-wall. Those additions resulted in Snodhill not being destroyed during Glyndŵr's attacks on Herefordshire. Chandos died without an heir in 1428, and his holdings were inherited by the Beauchamp family, relatives of his wife.

From the Beauchamps the castle was briefly held by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, known as Warwick the Kingmaker, and then, through the marriage of Anne Beauchamp, passed to Richard of York, later Richard III. From that point it was a royal castle. Elizabeth I later granted Snodhill, along with other Warwick holdings, to Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester.

The antiquary John Leland came through the Golden Valley in 1540 and described the castle as follows: "There is a castell a mile and more benethe Dorston apon the right ripe of Dour. It is called Snothil, and ther is a parke wallyd, and a castle in it on a hill caulled Southill, and therby is undar the castle a quarrey of marble. The castle is somewhat in ruine. Ther is a Fre Chappell. This castle longyd to Chandos."

The free chapel Leland noted was an ecclesiastical oddity: the Royal Free Chapel of Snodhill is the only royal chapel built inside a lordship castle rather than a royal one. Its chaplains were appointed personally by the monarch from at least the 13th century through to the 16th, among them Robert Fayrfax, a composer employed by Henry VII. The chapel was still in use in 1597.

Some sources state that the castle was besieged during the English Civil Wars. Evidence has been found for both a slighting of the keep and an organised demolition after that war. The castle had been recorded as being in decay in the mid-16th century, yet it was thought to have still been in use during the 17th century, and a 17th-century plan of the site survives, which excavation has used to fix the main entrance at the south-west corner of the inner bailey. By the mid-17th century the manor and castle had gone into the hands of the Prosser family and their relatives the Powells, who held the property until it was sold in 1940. A substantial 17th-century stone manor house about 200 metres to the west, Snodhill Court, probably incorporates much stonework taken from the castle, including carved corbels at its main entrance that match carvings later found in the chapel excavations.

The castle was briefly surveyed by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Act in July 1933, and the ruin was listed Grade II* in January 1949. Deterioration of the surviving fabric put Snodhill on the Heritage at Risk Register in 1988. English Heritage surveyed the site in 2012 and 2015; a 999-year lease was obtained in 2013 to enable repairs, held first by the Vivat Trust and then, from 2016, by the Snodhill Castle Preservation Trust, a charity formed by concerned local people with the support of Historic England.

Clearance of vegetation began in 2016, and consolidation of the masonry followed with grants from Historic England in 2017 and the Garfield Weston Foundation in 2019. The castle is now fully repaired and open to the public, and its charitable trust has organised excavations led by Herefordshire Archaeology every year since 2016. The Royal Free Chapel had been demolished so comprehensively that even its site was lost for more than four centuries, until in 2022 archaeologists working at the castle confirmed that its remains survive in the south-east corner of the main bailey; the chapel has since been fully excavated and put on display to visitors.