Welcome, as always, dear readers.

Although he denies, in an annoyed letter to Allen & Unwin, that “…I never walked in Wales or the marches in my youth…” (response to Ake Ohlmarks’ introduction to The Lord of the Rings, in which Ohlmark appears to have created an entire fictitious biography of JRRT, letter to Allen & Unwin, 23 February, 1961, Letters, 437), Tolkien did say that “I am very untraveled, though I know Wales…” and “I love Wales (what is left of it, when mines, and the even more ghastly sea-side resorts have done their worst)…” (letter to Deborah Webster, 25 October, 1958, Letters, 412).

And these remarks came readily to mind when, last evening, I discovered Snodhill Castle, while watching an archeology program, Digging for Britain, on YouTube.  One of its segments took us to the borderland between England and Wales, where the Norman conquerors of England had sought to expand their territory, eventually building a large number of castles as strongpoints during their several centuries of takeover.

(This is from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales website:  https://rcahmw.gov.uk/2018-year-in-review-our-improvements-to-coflein/ )

The early fortifications were once thought to have been what are called “motte and bailey”—

that is, a mound (“motte” is a late Latin word, mota, meaning “mound”) with a wooden tower on it with the addition of a palisaded lower court (“bailey” has a vaguer etymology, but I’m betting that behind it, ultimately, is Latin palus, “stake”, just as it is behind “palisade”).  For invaders who need an instant fort, this would be easy and quick to build—especially if you rounded up the locals (non-Normans, either Anglo-Saxons or Welsh, depending on your area of conquest) and made them build it for you under watchful Norman eyes.

In the 12^th century, these were gradually converted to stone, as you can see at Launceston, in Cornwall.

Recent archeological work (including that done for Digging for Britain—which you can watch here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_jnNSpOoI ), however, suggests that Snodhill may have been built from stone, dating from its earliest beginnings, c.1067AD (?  the first documentary evidence appears to be from 1136—for more, see the wonderfully detailed report from Historic England here:  https://historicengland.org.uk/research/results/reports/7209/SnodhillCastlePeterchurchHerefordshireArchaeologicalArchitecturalandAerialInvestigationandSurvey   For a quick overview, see:  https://historicengland.org.uk/research/results/reports/7209/SnodhillCastlePeterchurchHerefordshireArchaeologicalArchitecturalandAerialInvestigationandSurvey ).

Here’s what it looked like in 1848, long after its eventual abandonment,

when most of the stone had been robbed out and used, in part, to build Snodhill Court Farm—

(this is from British History Online, which you can see here:  https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/heref/vol1/plate-192  And, for more on the site, see:  https://www.snodhillcastle.org/history/ )

Here’s a recent photo of part of the site—

interesting, if you love castles, as I do, but more interesting, it seemed to me, was this aerial view—

which reminded me of:

“But long before, in the first days of the North Kingdom, they built a great watch-tower on Weathertop, Amon Sul they called it.  It was burned and broken, and nothing remains of it now but a tumbled ring, like a rough crown on the old hill’s head.  Yet once it was tall and fair.”  (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 11, “A Knife in the Dark”)

Aragorn is reassuring Merry, who has expressed an unease about the place—“It has a—well, rather a barrow-wightish look.  Is there any barrow on Weathertop?”—his reassurance being that it was never lived in and that it had once, in fact, been an important defensive feature from the early days of the northern realm of Arnor, “for the Tower of Amon Sul held the chief Palantir of the North…” (The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, I, “The Numenorean Kings”, (iii) “Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur”)

(the Hildebrandts)

Here’s Alan Lee’s interpretation of Weathertop–

and John Howe’s greener, more “English” version—

and a second view from the air of Snodhill—

At the moment, I have no documentation that Tolkien ever walked or motored through western Herefordshire and spotted Snodhill off in the distance at the top of a long valley, but, combining his self-proclaimed love for, and knowledge of, Wales, I wonder—had he seen it once, on a tall hill, in its ruined state, and would he have remembered it and placed it on his growing mental map of Middle-earth and its long and troubled history?

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

When thinking of castles, remember this:

“The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes dying, dying, dying.

O love they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field, or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.”

(from Alfred Tennyson’s The Princess, 1847—this lyric added to the 1850 edition—which you can read here:  https://archive.org/details/tennysonprincess/page/n5/mode/2up )

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O