page_title: Goodrich Castle
section_title: 18th and 19th-century history
hierarchical_section_title: Goodrich Castle / History / 18th and 19th-century history
caption_attribution_description: English: Goodrich Castle
context_page_description: Goodrich Castle is a Norman medieval castle ruin north of the village of Goodrich in Herefordshire, England, controlling a key location between Monmouth and Ross-on-Wye. It was praised by William Wordsworth as the "noblest ruin in Herefordshire" and is considered by historian Adrian Pettifer to be the "most splendid in the county, and one of the best examples of English military architecture".
  Goodrich Castle was probably built by Godric of Mappestone after the Norman invasion of England, initially as an earth and wooden fortification. In the middle of the 12th century the original castle was replaced with a stone keep, and was then expanded significantly during the late 13th century into a concentric structure combining luxurious living quarters with extensive defences. The success of Goodrich's design influenced many other constructions across England over the following years. It became the seat of the powerful Talbot family before falling out of favour as a residence in late Tudor times.
context_section_description: After the Civil War, Goodrich Castle remained with the Earls of Kent until 1740, when it was sold by Henry Grey to Admiral Thomas Griffin. Griffin undertook some restoration of the castle but retained it as a ruin.
  During the 1780s the concept of the picturesque ruin was popularised by the English clergyman William Gilpin. Goodrich Castle was one of the ruins he captured in his book Observations on the River Wye in 1782, writing that the castle was an example of the "correctly picturesque" landscape. By this time, the castle was in a slow state of decay. Theodore Fielding, an early Victorian historian, noted how the "castle's situation, far from human dwellings, and the stillness which that solitude, insures to its precinct, leaves contemplation to all the solemnity, that is inspired by the sight of grandeur sinking in dignity, into decay". The Regency and Victorian watercolour artists David Cox and William Callow also captured Goodrich Castle and its landscape in paint, again invoking the picturesque, romantic mood of the setting at the time.
  The castle was praised by William Wordsworth as the "noblest ruin in Herefordshire". Wordsworth first visited Goodrich Castle in 1793, and an encounter with a little girl he met while exploring the ruins led him to write the poem We are Seven in 1798. Other poets from this period were also inspired by the castle, including Henry Neele in 1827.
  By the 1820s, visitors could purchase an early guidebook at the site outlining the castle's history, and Victorian tourists recorded being charged six-pence to wander around the castle. In the early 1820s, the antiquarian Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick attempted to purchase the site, with the aim of converting the castle back into a private dwelling, but was unable to convince the owners to sell. Instead, Meyrick built the neo-gothic Goodrich Court in a similar style next door, which greatly displeased Wordsworth when he returned to Goodrich in 1841 and found the view spoilt by the new building. The new bridge over the river Wye, built in 1828, and the 1873 railway line added to the number of visitors.
  Goodrich Castle then passed through various hands, until in 1915 the Office of Works began discussions with its then owner, Mrs Edmund Bosanquet; large-scale collapses of parts of the north-west tower and curtain wall in 1919 contributed to Bosanquet's decision to grant the castle to the Commissioner of Works in 1920. The Commissioners began a programme of repairs to stabilise the ruin in its current state.
caption: The picturesque ruins of the castle inspired many artists' work, including David Cox, who produced this watercolour in 1815.
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