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with golden sickle or forceps, and introduces the fortunate pilgrims of Deerfold 
Forest to the Lollards in Herefordshire and the Asarabacca plant. And sol 
plunge into my task with a view of despatch. 
The castle and chief stronghold of the Wigmores stands in the north-west 
corner of the border shire of Hereford, eight miles on the English side of Offa’s 
Dyke, one of a chain of strongholds of which Clun, Hopton, Brampton Bryan lay 
to the due north, Lingen and Lyonshall to south, while in its rear were posted 
Croft and Richard’s Castle, assuring the garrison speedy communication with 
Ludlow and Shrewsbury. The church, formerly attached to the once wealthy 
abbey founded for monks of the order of St. Austin, is a Romanesque building 
with an addition standing on the pinnacle of a hill, close to a precipice whose 
chasms are filled by great trees. It exhibits some herring-bone masonry with 
curious stall wood-work inside. The Grange and Abbey of Wigmore lie a mile or 
so to the north of the old town and castle. (See more at p. 8, Shropshire Hand- 
book.) 
The castle above the town stands on a very commanding eminence, above 
the church and beyond it, between which and it runs what was once ‘‘a wet ditch.” 
To the west it is commanded by a still higher hill, but north and north-east the 
outer walls crown precipitous and briary heights, and overlook (as from an eyrie) 
the broad rich meadow lands of Adforton, Letton, Brampton, and Leintwardine, 
making it an almost impregnable stronghold by the help of art and nature. High 
over all to the north-east was the square Norman keep, with its projecting buttress 
towers, below which, connected with it by a strong battlemented wall, were the 
apartments of the castle in a quadrangle, and at the foot of the hill, a second and 
perhaps later wall. In the lower part is the great gateway, surrounded with a lofty 
curtain protected by square and round bastions. Outside the castle, and separated 
by a gorge, appears to have been a protective barbican, as well as strong embank- 
ments, sloping towards the moor beneath. The entrance gateway of the 14th 
century is still tolerably perfect, and was reached by a drawbridge. That such an 
outlook should have been early secured is easy to understand, yet from the account 
in Domesday it seems to have been waste land in Saxon times, and only built 
upon by Earl William Fitz-Osborn on waste land called Moreston, which belonged 
to Gunneret, in King Edward’s time. It is inferrible that between 1072 and 1085, 
Edric Silvaticus forsook allegiance to King William: that William Fitz-Osborn, 
Earl of Hereford, being then dead, Ralph Mortimer, son of Roger Mortimer, 
the conqueror’s kinsman who fought at Hanley, was deputed to reduce Edric, and 
having succeeded in doing so, was rewarded with many of the estates of Edric, and 
that he became Lord of Wigmore in 1074, in virtue of being the King’s principal 
lieutenant in Herefordshire. Mr. G. T. Clark judges that when the original fort- 
‘ress was founded is unknown, though there certainly was a mound here before the 
time of Edward the Elder, who is recorded to have repaired Wigmore. He holds 
that a Norman lord, at the end of 11th or beginning of 12th century, first super- 
seded (as elsewhere) the timber walls or palisades of the English keep, by a poly- 
gonal keep, and the curtain walls of the inner ward. Much of the extant masonry, 
with the exception of the Norman shell, keep, and wall, is of decorated date, mostly 
