Notes on St Davids Part 3

NOTES ON ST. DAVID'S CHURCH, MUCH DEWCHURCH by Hubert Reade (1936)

Part 3 : WORMELOW TUMP. HAROLD'S BORDER DEFENCES.

Archenfield, of which Much Dewchurch was a parish, placed itself by treaty under the King of England, Edward the Elder, about 937, preserving its own laws and thus became one of the first of those native states such as those over which in India and in Africa King Edward VIII now rules.

For the administration of Archenfield the Hundred Court met at Wormelow round a funeral mound said by tradition to cover the remains of Mordred, that nephew of King Arthur who was murdered by his uncle on the highway at Gamber Head.

It was believed that no one could step round or across this mound twice in the same number of paces, a superstition which also occurs in various instances in classical literature. Unfortunately the tumulus, which covered the place opposite the Wormelow Tump ( Inn ), was removed when the road was widened only in the last century, and there seems to be no record to show that remains, if any, were found in it.

Much Dewchurch, however, from its position at the ford over the Worm was a more important place than Wormelow, where there (are) not any very old houses, and consequently was the ecclesiastical centre of the district.

The first church, which remained in use until the Eleventh Century, was evidently a long, low building stretching from the entrance to the Tower on the West to the chancel arch on the East, and probably ended in a small semicircular apse.

It was not until the Eleventh Century that the English made any attempt to advance into Wales beyond the Dore, but about 1050 A.D. they began to take possession of the lower valley of the Monnow and brought Monmouth under English rule. In 1057 the Welsh raided Herefordshire, took the City of Hereford and burnt the Cathedral, and in consequence every effort was made by the English to strengthen the fortifications of the borderland.

Edward the Confessor who was then on the throne had been brought up in Normandy, and was to a great extent in the hands of Norman counselors. Probably by their advice he gave grants of land in the Welsh Marches to Immigrants from Normandy who spoke Breton - a 'Welsh dialect - and who undertook to organize their holdings for defensive purposes, and thus Herefordshire came to be one of the few districts in England in which Norman Castles were built before William the Conqueror subdued the country in 1066. Ewyas Harold and Richard's Castle, if not Hereford Castle, were in Norman hands before that date.

The powerful Saxon Earl Godwin, who then ruled in Kent and Sussex, was bitterly opposed to the Norman courtiers, and possibly, in order to gratify him, Edward the Confessor appointed his son Harold, the King Harold who fell at Hastings, to command the Welsh districts lying on the West side of the Wye between Ross and Chepstow.

It was Harold who conquered the town of Monmouth and made it a Saxon settlement, and who shortly afterwards began to fortify the frontiers of Archenfield in order to protect the Western Midlands against incursions from South Wales .

In 1060 the Spaniards were, probably, the greatest military engineers in Western Europe, and had just completed the fortified lines which protected North-Western Spain against the invasion of the Moors who held the South of the Iberian Peninsula . These lines gave its name to Old Castille. The Normans had long been in close touch with Spain, and undoubtedly Harold based his plans on those which had been carried out there by the Christians but a few years earlier.

Like the Spaniards, he incorporated every kind of building in his scheme of defence, in which Castles, Peel Towers, Churches, Abbeys, and a little later on the estates of the Military Orders, such as the Knights Templars, had each to play a part, and in this line the Church of Much Dewchurch was an important link.

Next month - Part 4 - Features of the building