Welsh Journals

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rdtraltfip €minmw, FOURTH SERIES.—No. XVIII. APRIL, 1874. WIGMORE. The Castle of Wigmore, the head of the Hundred and Honour of that name, the chief seat of the great House of Mortimer, and the centre of that territorial power which made its lords so formidable to their sovereigns, and at last brought about their fall, stands in the north¬ west corner of the border shire of Hereford, and about eight miles on the English side of Offa's Dyke. It is one of a chain of strongholds of which Clun, Hopton, and Brampton Bryan, lay to its immediate north, and Lin- gen and Lyons Hall to its south ; while in its rear were posted Croft and Richard's Castle, assuring to its gar¬ rison a speedy communication with the great central fortresses of Ludlow and Shrewsbury. Most of these castles are of ancient date, and their earthworks testify to the intensity and permanence of the struggle maintained by the Welsh against the en¬ croachments of the colony planted by the English in the latter part of the eighth century, and protected by the mighty work which still bears the name of Offa. These traces of the footsteps of the invader from beyond the Severn may still be observed along the frontier marches of the Principality from Cardiff to Hawarden, posted wherever the valleys laid open the interior of the country; nor along the whole line is there a grander or stronger military work than that for which Wigmore was celebrated long before the Normans crossed the Channel. 4th seu., vol. v. 7