Why are three of Englands earliest castles in Herefordshire?
Many historians believe that motte-and-bailey castles were built in England only after the Battle of Hastings (1066) by the conquering Normans. Herefordshire is unique in that King Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) encouraged Normans to settle in Herefordshire before 1066. [Note that the street behind All Saints Church in Hereford was called Frenschemanne Lane in the Middle Ages (it is now Bewell Street) and that the customs governing the townspeople in Hereford recorded in the Herefordshire Domesday Book have been compared with those of the town of Breteuil in Normandy.] Edward, who had a Norman mother, had spent 25 years in Normandy. The disputed succession to the throne of England can to a large extent be traced to Edward’s part-Norman ancestry. He even made his Norman nephew Ralph (the Timid) Earl of Hereford when the Saxon Earl Godwin and his sons were exiled from England during an argument with the king. In response to the defeat of Bishop Ealdred of Worcester by the Welsh in 1049
