Moccas Castle is located in Herefordshire, England. It was probably built in late 11th century by the de Fresne family. The castle had two baileys and a small motte, the main oval bailey formed by scarping a low hillock, with the motte at the east end. It would almost certainly have been built from timber.
Around 1290, Hugh de Frene began to develop the manor of Moccas. He received a charter of free warren in 1291, and established the Moccas Deer Park to the west of the castle. In 1294, he received a licence to crenellate the site from the Crown, enabling him to rebuild in stone – though with restrictions: no towers or turrets were to be built and the curtain walls were to be no taller than 10 ft (3 m). He apparently quickly broke these restrictions, resulting in legal action but ultimately retained the property, likely by paying a fine.
The castle remained in the de Frene family until 1375, when it passed through marriage to the Cricketot family and later to the Vaughans. In 1550, Walter Vaughan built a new manor house at Moccas, near the village church, and a hundred years later the estate was acquired by the Cornewalls.
In the 18th century, the heiress Catherine Cornewall married Sir George Amyand, a successful London banker who took the name and arms of Cornewall. The existing manor house was considered too old fashioned and in 1775 they began building Moccas Court nearby. The remains of the old castle began to be used a quarry for road-building materials and by the 19th century the castle’s moat had been partly drained, leaving only marshy ground.
During the course of the 20th century, most of the earthworks were destroyed by ploughing, and only the original knoll now survives.
Bibliography
- Robinson, C. J. (1869) The Castles of Herefordshire and Their Lords. London: Longman.
- Rowley, Trevor (2022) Landscapes of the Norman Conquest. Pen and Sword Books
- Whitehead, D. (2000) “The de Fresnes, Vaughans and Cornewalls: 1160-1771”, in P.T. Harding and T. Wall (eds.), Moccas: An English Deer Park. English Nature.