Historic Description of Clun Castle

Clun Castle

Twelve miles north-west from Ludlow, on the edge of what was once a waste land, the Forest of Clun, lies one of the original Norman castles of the time of the Conquest – the stronghold of Robert of Say, a follower of the great Earl Roger of Montgomery. Just three miles on the English side of Offa’s Dyke, the immemorial boundary against the Welsh, are a cluster of three well-marked knolls, round which the river Clun runs on three sides. Robert chose the highest of the knolls, built a motte upon it, drew a palisade around its contour, and scarped the sides – tow towards the river could be made quite precipitous – the third was cut into a ditch, which separated this knoll from that lying south-west of it. This second and lower knoll was probably used as an outer bailey, as it was scarped and has traces of an earthen parapet around it – presumably the base of a palisade. This bailey never seems to have had any further fortifications given it, but the main castle on the northern and higher knoll went through the usual vicissitudes of a Norman fortress. At some time in the twelfth century a stone enceinte replaced the palisading, and a big stone keep was constructed. But this did not stand on the site of the original small motte, but to the east of it, and partly outside the knoll. For its foundations start at the level of the ditch, and it covers the whole east side of the eminence, three of its five stories overtopping the level of the summit, but the other two rising from the ditch and being actually below the curtain wall. It has been suggested that this curious scheme was adopted so as not to throw the whole weight of such a vast structure, 80 feet high, on the artificial earth at the top-level, but rather on the solid rock of the lower stratum. It thus projects into the ditch in a very curious fashion. This great mass of stone is fairly perfect, but the rest of the defences of the castle have gone entirely to ruin. There remain a fragment of the north-western wall, with two bastions, and a smaller one on the south. The latter is in front of the small circular mound, which probably represents the original motte.

The Says of Clun do not seem to have made any great advance against Wales – it was their neighbours the Mortimer’s of Wigmore who overran Maelienydd, the region to the west of Clun Forest. The family did plenty of fighting – Helias, the third of the line, slew two princes, Howell and Cadogan, in 1142. But his son Ingelram left no male heir, only a daughter, Isabella, who married a Marcher baron of somewhat greater importance than her father, William Fitz-Alan, Lord of Oswestry. The two marches remained permanently united, and as Oswestry was larger and richer than Clun, which was mainly forest, it is probable that the Fitz-Alan’s resided more within it, and paid less attention to Clun than if it had been their main holding. There seems to be no definitely thirteenth century or fourteenth century architecture at Clun, or anything later than the great keep. The absolutely ruinous condition of the castle makes it dangerous to stat that nothing was built by the Fitz-Alan’s: at any rate nothing visible. An interesting inquisitio post mortem made after the death of John Fitz-Alan in 1272, reports Clun as small though well-built, but the roof of the tower, and the bridge connecting the castle with its outer bailey were in need of repairs.

The position and status of the Fitz-Alan’s had been entirely changed in 1243, when the death without issue of William of Albini, last Earl of Arundel of the old creation, caused the castle and manor of Arundel to devolve to his nephew, John Fitz-Alan, the child of his sister Isabella. The Fitz-Alan’s thus became the greatest landowners in Sussex, and began to have other interests than those of a marcher baron: the Albinis’ old title of the earl was conceded to them by Edward I, and they ranked for the future among the most important subjects of the crown. While the Earls of Arundel were leading armies or insurrections, marrying the daughters of kings and princes, or going to the block, it would be natural that the less important of their two march-lordships should be neglected. Leland, passing by in 1540 or thereabouts, found Clun “somewhat ruinous, though it hath been both strong and well builded.”

An Arundel heiress took Clun in 1580 to the Howards of Norfolk. But the attainders to which that ducal line were so subject under the Tudors brought Clun to the crown, and James I in 1604 gave it to the rightful heir’s great uncle, Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, who left it by will to his nephew the Earl of Suffolk. In 1646 the Parliamentarians “slighted” it, and for centuries it has been going slowly into decay. The enormous bulk of its curious projecting keep makes it worthy of a visit.

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