Goodrich Castle
A castle that has a few ghost stories, looks as impressive as it is, and had an episode of Merlin filmed there. This was the ideal spot for us.
Before you asked, yes we specifically visited here despite it being a bit of a drive from where we were staying because of the Merlin connection, our Ren is a HUGE fan of the show.
We can only guess as to when Goodrich Castle was built, but we know it stood in 1101 when it had the name Godric's Castle. It is believed to date back to pre-Norman conquest days, but as of now it is considered Norman Medieval. It stands close to the Welsh border and because of this the threat of raids and attacks were high throughout this period, especially as this territory was part of the Welsh Marches which were granted to Norman nobles.
Time shifted into the 12th century and so did the attitudes of the English nobility toward the Welsh, but not for the better. Policies became more aggressive and so did Henry II, but it seemed more so in this specific area that was prone to attacks. The castle had been passed from Godric as they assumed by the name it was owned by he, and instead passed to William Fitz Baderon who is believed to have been his son in law. It then passed to his son, Baderon of Monmouth in around 1120. By this time England was in chaos as throughout the next decade Stephen of England and his cousin Empress Matilda fought for power. Baderon married into the de Clare family via Rohese, who were quite the powerful lineage and supported Stephen, but Goodrich was in Matilda's territory and so had to be seized back by its own owner.
By the mid 12th century Baderon decided to upgrade Godric's castle, so down came the earth and timber and up went the stone. This was a cheap build, but the design was supposed to be imposing and secure, so it is possible that he opted to do this to dissuade Matilda's forces from seizing the castle. Stephen elected Baderon's brother in law, Gilbert de Clare as the Earl of Pembroke which eventually led to him acquiring the castle instead so at least it kind of stayed within the family. However, when the castle passed to Gilbert's son, Richard de Clare in 1148, it is thought that he upgraded the keep instead of his uncle, however we view this unlikely as six years later he fell out of favour with King Henry II because of his families support for Stephen and the castle was taken by the crown. It seemed unlikely that he'd have done this work, or the King himself, but regardless the keep was turned to stone.
The crown passed to King Richard I and then his brother John and so did Goodrich Castle. However, King John lost a fair chunk of his lands in France which in turn robbed the English nobles of their estates and so began the paranoia that because of this he'd face an uprising. To combat this, in 1203 he transferred Goodrich Castle and the nearby manor to William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke to compensate for the lands he lost in France. It was Marshal who then expanded Goodrich by adding a towered curtain wall in stone around the keep. He was a hands on knight as he often stepped in when his new castle was threatened by the Welsh including in 1216 when he was forced to leave Henry III's coronation feast in Gloucester to defend Goodrich.
His sons took the castle when he died, first the eldest, William, who then passed it to his younger brother Walter. Walter's older brother, Richard, then took the castle from him when William died and it all went to pot as he allied himself with the Welsh and led the barons against Henry II. Henry then took the castle in 1233 and eventually restored it to Walter, but he died in 1245 so it reverted back to the crown and stayed until 1247 when it was passed through marriage to William de Valence who was the half brother to Henry III. It was still vaguely within the family though. Henry had arranged for his half brother to marry Joan de Munchensi who was an heiress of the Marshal estate and thus Valence inherited both Goodrich and the title Earl of Pembroke. This new ownership didn't solve the issue of the Welsh though. The attacks were becoming more frequent and security at the castle was failing, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the Welsh Prince, was raiding more and more and so something had to be done.
To combat this, Valence started building a bigger castle around the original keep and he started by demolishing Marshal's improvements. Construction was expensive and it didn't help that he'd drawn oak from several royal forests which wasn't cheap, but Valence had inherited riches through his wife and connection to Henry and so wasn't deterred. He was building up Goodrich at the same time that his nephew, Edward I was building his major castles in North Wales and it seems inspiration was taken as Goodrich ended up quite similar in design to those Welsh castles and thus became a rarity in England.
Aymer de Valence, William's son, continued the work and built further outer defences before he died in 1324 and he took inspiration from the Tower of London. Through mixing influences from the capital and North Wales the Valences made Goodrich into a fortress and an acceptable noble home without compromising its defences. When Aymer died the castle then passed to his niece, Elizabeth de Comyn, however she was kidnapped by Hugh Despenser the Younger, held captive at Goodrich and then forced to sign the castle along with some other of her lands over to him or face death.
Elizabeth married Richard Talbot, 2nd Baron Talbot who seized back his wife's castle a year later in 1326, just before Queen Isabella of France landed in England and removed the Despensers power along with that of her husband Edward II. Elizabeth then legally regained her title to the castle in 1327 and later her husband asked Edward III for permission to create a dungeon in order to hold prisoners, this was granted.
The Talbots kept the castle in the family for quite some time and it remained a favourite residence for them despite the threat from Wales. It fell to Gilbert Talbot to defend the castle against the threat in 1404 and he did so. As the 15th century progressed Wales backed off, but the Talbot's expanded anyway creating more space in the lords quarters as well as accommodation for servants.
We then fall to the Wars of the Roses. The Talbots gained the title of Earls of Shrewsbury in 1442 just before the war kicked off, but they were very much on the Lancastrian side and therefore fighting battles elsewhere. They opted to stay at their castle in Sheffield and to be honest that was their downfall as John Talbot died when the Lancastrians fell to the Yorkists at Northampton in 1460 and the castle ended up in the hands of Yorkist William Herbert. This wasn't for long though, as John's son, also John, made peace with the King and was granted his lands, including Goodrich, back before he died in 1473.
Goodrich had fallen out of favour with the Talbots as it was too far away from London where the power remained. It was used as a judicial centre rather than a residence and often held prisoners for the local court. The last of the Talbots died out with no male heir and so Goodrich passed in 1616 to Henry Grey, Earl of Kent who decided to rent Goodrich to tenants as it wasn't a fashionable place to live.
We feel like the weatherman from Horrible Histories, as AND THEN the English Civil War of 1640 hit. Goodrich shone in history here as the sieges became desperate. First it was Parliament who held the castle thanks to the Earl of Stamford. December 1643 brought the Royalist squeeze on the area and he withdrew to Gloucester so Goodrich switched to Royalists under Sir Henry Lingen. The Royalists did not treat the area with respect, they burnt the surrounding farm buildings and just over all made a pig of themselves. The castle became known as Guthridge Castle during this dark time and Lingen continued to use Goodrich as a base while raiding nearby Parliamentary forces, but they let the castle deteroriate and as it was still pretty much medieval, this was a mistake.
1646 brought the swapping of sides once again. Colonels John Birch and Robert Kyrle marched from the Siege of Hereford and tried to take the castle. They were nearly successful with their stealthy night time surprise attack, but Lingen recovered too quickly for it to be fruitful. So he returned in June and after finding that the castle was too strong for a direct attack, took to building trenches and worked to break the pipe supplying water to the castle. After the cisterns in the courtyard were destroyed by exploding shells the Royalists were forced to depend on the old castle well, but this can't have been nice, but they still held.
This was personal for Birch as he had beef with Lingen, so he built a huge mortar which was named Roaring Meg and was able to fire a gunpowder filled shell a lot heavier and therefore bigger than the artillery already used. He focussed on the north west tower and narrowly escaped being blown up by Lingen's counter mine dug under Birch's tunnel. He'd moved Roaring Meg closer under the cover of darkness and fired close range which resulted in the collapse of the tower and buried the mine. The Royalists took stock, four barrels of gunpowder and thirty of beer, plus the Parliamentarians able to directly assault them, it was a no brainer to surrender and so they did.
Unfortunately, the next year it was deemed a threat if taken again and so the Parliamentarians slighted the castle. The Countess of Kent was given £1000 in damages but decided it wasn't worth rebuilding.
The Earls of Kent kept hold of Goodrich until 1740 when Henry Grey sold it to Admiral Thomas Griffin who made some repairs but ultimately chose to keep the castle as a ruin. By the 1780s William Gilpin had established a country wide love for ruins and thus it became romantic and picturesque. The castle was in active decay by this point but was still loved by the public including William Wordsworth, he wrote the poem We are Seven in 1798 inspired by the ruins.
By 1820 Goodrich had become a Victorian tourist hotspot, even prompting a guidebook and being charged an entry fee. Offers were made to buy the site and convert it back to a residential dwelling but this was refused and the castle swapped hands as a ruin until 1915 when the Office of Works approached Mrs Bosanquet about repairs of the ruin. She granted the castle to them in 1920 after the curtain wall collapsed.
The site is now run by English Heritage who stabilises the ruins while keeping them open to the public so people like us can visit. They even restored Roaring Meg here to view! The giftshop is lacking a few options but we had fun getting a few trinkets here, we also had a ploughman's and a minced pie here as it was almost Christmas when we visited! So the café was nice.
However the bit we love talking about has to be the ghost stories and Goodrich Castle has two well known tales. First is regarding the Great Keep, sometimes known as Macbeth Tower after Shakespeare's infamous Macbeth. It is said that an Irish chieftain was held prisoner there and died while attempting escape. His ghost still haunts the tower.
The second ghostly tale originates from the English Civil War. The locals say that Birch's niece, Alice, fell in love with a man on the opposing side, Charles Clifford. The two attempted to elope but were caught in a flash flood when trying to cross the River Wye, they drown and returned to the site as ghosts living out their tragic love story.
We can't say we caught any ghosts but we can say we had a blast! These ruins are huge and we spent ages exploring. Quite often we find ourselves in and out of a site fairly quickly, but this took a whole afternoon which is why we ended up with a late lunch here! We'd go back to the place that doubled for Morgause's lair in a second, it was beyond cool to wander these ruins with their historic marks and eerie feeling in winter, and if we get the chance we will do it again! This had to be one of our favourite sites, if not Ren's favourite of 2025.
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