Qualla: Croft Castle

Croft Castle: Introduction

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit UKgeofan (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. There is a name in the Domesday Book of 1086, near the start of the Herefordshire returns: Bernard de Croft. The family has owned the land at Croft, north-west of Leominster, ever since - with one interruption of about 124 years in the 18th and 19th centuries, when financial collapse forced them to sell. They bought it back in 1923. In 1957 they gave it to the National Trust. Almost a thousand years of single-family ownership, broken only by the South Sea Bubble. There are not many houses in England with a continuous story that long.

Read more: Croft Castle on Qualla

Image: UKgeofan (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Croft Castle: The Border Family

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tabbipix, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Crofts settled in this corner of Herefordshire shortly after the Norman Conquest, and their early history is bound up with their neighbours the Mortimers - the great Marcher lords of Wigmore and Ludlow whose territories shaped English politics for centuries. The Battle of Mor...

Read more: Croft Castle on Qualla

Image: Tabbipix | CC BY-SA 3.0

Croft Castle: Sir Richard and the King-Makers

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0. The Crofts produced courtiers and soldiers in steady supply. Sir Richard Croft, born around 1430 and dead 1509, served four kings in succession - Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, and Henry VII - which was a remarkable feat in the violent dynastic shuffle of the late 15th century...

Read more: Croft Castle on Qualla

Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK | CC BY 2.0

Croft Castle: The Bishop, the South Sea, and the Architect

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Garlick, CC BY-SA 2.0. The present house dates from the 1660s, built during the time when Herbert Croft was Bishop of Hereford - chaplain to Charles I, Dean of the Chapels Royal to Charles II. It replaced an earlier house thirty yards to the west, which archaeologists excavated in 2002. The quadrangula...

Read more: Croft Castle on Qualla

Image: Michael Garlick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Croft Castle: Lost and Recovered

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fabian Musto, CC BY-SA 2.0. Johnes sold the castle in 1799. It passed to Somerset Davies, the MP for Ludlow, whose descendants the Kevill-Davies held it for over a century. Walter Sarel made further alterations in 1913 - removing the central section of Pritchard's gothic entrance and adding a battlemented p...

Read more: Croft Castle on Qualla

Image: Fabian Musto | CC BY-SA 2.0

Croft Castle: What the Park Holds

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0. The 1,500 acres of woodland, farmland, and parkland around the castle hold things older than the castle itself. Croft Ambrey, an Iron Age hillfort, sits on the high ground above the house - one of the most impressive prehistoric earthworks in the Welsh Marches. Beech and oak tree...

Read more: Croft Castle on Qualla

Image: Richard Webb | CC BY-SA 2.0