page_title: Knighton, Powys
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Knighton, Powys / History
caption_attribution_description: Abstract: Broad St. Knighton
context_page_description: Knighton is a small market town and community in Powys, Wales, on the River Teme and the England–Wales border. The Teme is not navigable in its higher reaches. Part of the town, including Knighton railway station, is in Shropshire. Originally an Anglo-Saxon settlement, it later became a partially planned Norman town. It was situated in Mercia, being east of Offa's Dyke.
context_section_description: Knighton's earliest history is obscure, despite some local clues: Caer Caradoc (an Iron Age hill fort associated with Caradoc or Caractacus) is 2 miles (3 km) away, off the road to Clun. Watling Street, a Roman road, passes a few miles to the east at Leintwardine. Any settlements in the Knighton area would have belonged to the Iron Age kingdom of Cornovii, which coincided with the modern counties of Cheshire, Shropshire, North Staffordshire, North Herefordshire, and parts of Powys and Worcestershire.
  Knighton includes a preserved section of Offa's Dyke. The parallel Wat's Dyke a few miles to the east, runs north and south along the English/Welsh border from Basingwerk near Holywell to Oswestry. Dykes aside, two Norman castles, earthen mottes, likely to be from 12th and 13th centuries, are the oldest surviving structures in modern Knighton. There is disagreement about the chronology of the two castles, although the earlier is likely to be the one above the town in Castle Road, with its more defensible position, wider panorama and clear evidence of a bailey. The first castle built here would also have overlooked the market place in Market Street and the town planned between Broad Street and St Edwards Church.
  The town became a borough in 1203, with a charter permitting a weekly market and annual fair. The presence of two castles within a comparatively small town suggests that one (the earlier motte and bailey sited atop the town) went out of use before the establishment of the second (the motte with no bailey at Bryn y Castell). As Knighton Castle was captured and destroyed by Llywellyn ap Gruffudd in 1262, it seems likely that the second, later castle at Bryn y Castell was undertaken after that and was likely sited on lower ground so as to guard the crossing point of the River Teme. Bryn y Castell, as the one surviving castle in Knighton by then, was besieged by Owain Glyndŵr in 1402 and destroyed along with much of the town. The major battle of the rebellion was fought in the same year at Pilleth (Welsh: Bryn Glas) 3 miles (5 km), south of the town. Though documents pertaining to the defence of Knighton during the Glyndwr rebellion state that Knighton had stout and defensible walls, no historical, archaeological or topographic evidence for a town wall, even of timber, has been found. So it is thought more likely that the statement referred to the castle walls, rather than the town.
  The town church dates from the 11th century, but much of it was rebuilt in the 19th century. It is one of only two in Wales dedicated to St Edward, patron saint of England before St George was chosen. This English dedication is a symptom of the dual English/Welsh nature of the town, which was not legally resolved until 1535, when Knighton was finally confirmed as part of Wales by the Acts of Union. Knighton also has a Baptist chapel and a small Catholic church.
  Knighton first prospered as a centre of the wool trade in the 15th century and was later an important point on the two drover routes from Montgomery to Hereford, and from London to Aberystwyth. Otherwise, Knighton was remote from centres of commerce.
  It seemed likely that the railways would also fail to reach the town; the 1840s and 1850s saw rapid railway building right across Great Britain, but Radnorshire had a small population and little industry. Construction of a railway was made economically just viable by an entrepreneurial drive to connect the Mumbles and Milford Haven with the cities and factories of the industrial Midlands. The Knighton Railway Company was formed by local landowners and businessmen to build a line from Craven Arms to the town. Work began in August 1858 and the line reached Knighton in March 1861. The station itself ensued in 1865.
  To mark the accession of H. M. Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, the initials "ER" were planted in deciduous trees in an evergreen forest on a hill to the north of the town.
  In August 1970, Knighton hosted a rock festival with bands such as The Move, along with Pete Brown & Piblokto, Roger Bunn, Forever More, Clark-Hutchinson, James Lithe
caption: Broad St. Knighton, 1910s
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