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Castle-Wigmore (Ruins)

Wigmore Castle was founded after the Norman Conquest, probably c.1070, by William fitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford and a close associate of William the Conqueror. It was built on waste ground at a place called Merestun, the settlement by the mere or lake. The land was held at the time of the Conquest by Gunnfrothr or Gunnvarthr, who also held land at Lingen and Brampton Bryan. The associated town of Wigmore below the castle was probably also founded by fitzOsbern, perhaps around the earlier settlement. There is no evidence for any earlier fortification on the site of the castle, but despite this, Wigmore in Herefordshire has sometimes been mistaken for Winingamere, a place in East Anglia where Edward the Elder built a fortification against the Danes in 971. Recent research has suggested that Winingamere was near Newport, Essex.[1] The form of fitzOsbern's early castle at Wigmore is unknown, but given the scale of his fortifications at Chepstow, Monmouth and elsewhere, it is likely to have been substant

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