Ewyas Harold Castle

Ewyas Harold Castle stands on the edge of the village of Ewyas Harold in Herefordshire. It was a motte-and-bailey castle built overlooking the Dulas Brook, with an earlier Saxon fort beneath it. The first castle was raised in 1048, possibly by Osbern Pentecost, and destroyed four years later. William Fitz Osbern rebuilt it after the Norman Conquest and it appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. A priory was founded inside the bailey in 1100.

The castle passed to William Beauchamp, Lord Abergavenny, in the early 15th century. He refortified it against Owain Glyndŵr, though no attack came. By 1645 the castle was in ruins and today only earthworks remain. The site marks where one of England’s earliest castles once stood.

Visitors find low grassy mounds and shallow ditches on the village edge. The earthworks outline the old motte and bailey, with the Dulas Brook flowing nearby. There are no standing walls, but the shape of the defences is clear. The remains lie open to the sky, quiet beside the modern lanes and houses.