Garway Hill Common Enclosure

Has been described as a Questionable Timber Castle (Other/Unknown)

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains

NameGarway Hill Common Enclosure
Alternative Names
Historic CountryHerefordshire
Modern AuthorityHerefordshire
1974 AuthorityHereford and Worcester
Civil ParishGarway

Sub-rectangular enclosure, possibly Iron Age in date, on Garway Hill Common. Field investigations in 1972 found it surviving as an earthwork with rounded corners and sides 50 metres in length. it comprised a bank up to 1 metre in height above an outer ditch 0.3 metres in depth. The earthworks were badly mutilated on the south side but reasonably well preserved elsewhere. The east side was slightly convex, and had an entrance at its centre, now mutilated by a modern track. Two breaks in the ramparts near the northwest and southwest corners were caused by a modern field bank which continued to the south as a possible trackway. There were no remains of structures within the enclosure. (PastScape)

Gatehouse Comments

May have had medieval use. Isolated from medieval settlement. Doubtful. Shoesmith suggest this as the site of the castle mention by Geoffrey of Monmouth as the place where Vortigern was burnt to death. This is more probably Little Doward Camp at Ganarew

- Philip Davis

Not scheduled

Not Listed

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)
County Historic Environment Record
OS Map Grid ReferenceSO442249
Latitude51.9205017089844
Longitude-2.81295990943909
Eastings344230
Northings224920
HyperLink HyperLink HyperLink

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Books

  • Shoesmith, Ron, 2009 (Rev edn.), Castles and Moated Sites of Herefordshire (Logaston Press) p. 127
  • 1981, Herefordshire Countryside Treasures (Hereford and Worcester County Council) p. 75

Journals

  • 1993, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 59 p. 29
  • 1968, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 7 p. 3
  • Kay, R., 1967, 'Three unrecorded earthworks from S W Herefordshire' Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club Vol. 39.1 p. 41-3 (plan)