Croft Castle

Croft Castle is a castle, church and garden in the civil parish of Croft and Yarpole, Herefordshire, England.

It is a National Trust property which is open to the public.

Location 
The site is located at Yarpole,  north-west of Leominster, in Herefordshire, England. It is surrounded by 1,500 acres of woodland, farmland and parkland. It is at .

The Mortimer Trail, a long-distance footpath, passes by.

Castle 

A building has been on the site from the 11th century and it has from this time been the home of the Croft family and Croft baronets. The Croft family were closely linked to their neighbours the Mortimers of Wigmore and later Ludlow. The Battle of Mortimer's Cross took place on Croft lands nearby in 1461. The present building originated as a castle in the 14th century and has been much altered since. It was the home of a John Croft who married one of Owain Glyndŵr's daughters. In the 15th century the Croft family adopted the Welsh Wyvern crest, a wounded black dragon, seen as a subtle allusion to their Glyndwr heritage. Croft Castle was restored after slighting in the Civil War. It now consists of a stone quadrangular manor house with a small castellated round tower at each corner and a small square tower flanking the north side.  The castle is under the care of the National Trust and members of the Croft family still live within it.

The manor house has a quadrectangular structure around a central courtyard. The north side of the building is not parallel to the south side. The outside walls of the building date from the 15th century. The building has four circular towers on each corner of the structure, although they are too slender to be defensive structures. The north range is Elizabethan, while the other ranges date later than 1746, and are Georgian in design. The building originally had a parapet, which was later removed. The sash windows were a later addition. The entrance porch, which has flanking parapets, is also Georgian, although it may have been located on the site of a former gatehouse.

The castle was the home of the Croft family for nearly 1000 years. It may have been built by Richard Croft. The Croft family was recorded as living in the structure in the Domesday Book. The Croft family suffered financially following the South Sea Bubble and in 1746 sold the estate to Richard Knight (1693-1765), the eldest son and heir of Richard Knight (1659-1745), of Downton Hall, in the parish of Downton on the Rock in Herefordshire, a wealthy ironmaster who operated the Bringewood Ironworks and founded a large fortune and family dynasty. He married Elizabeth Powell, daughter of Samuel Powell of Stanedge, Radnorshire, by whom he had a sole daughter and heiress Elizabeth Knight, who married Thomas Johnes (died 1780) of Llanfair Clydogau, MP for Radnorshire (1777–80). In the 1760s Thomas Johnes  remodelled Croft Castle in the Rococo-Gothic style to the design of the architect Thomas Pritchard (d.1777). Their son and heir was Thomas Johnes II (1748-1816) of Croft Castle, MP, who adopted the additional surname of Knight (according to the mural monument he erected 1813/16 to his ancestors in the chapel of Croft Castle), a pioneer in the field of agriculture. He purchased another estate at Hafod Uchtryd, Ceredigion, Wales, 65 miles away, the manor house of which he filled with valuable works of art. He planted 3 million trees on the Hafod estate and created a highly picturesque landscape painted in 1789 by J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851). He met with financial difficulties and sold Croft Castle in the 1780s to Somerset Davies (c.1754-1817), MP for Ludlow in 1783. He continued to reside at Hafod, badly damaged by fire in 1807.

Having been owned by several further families, Croft Castle was re-purchased by the Croft family in 1923.

It was Grade I listed by Historic England on 8 November 1956. It is similar in appearance to Treago Castle.

Chapel 

The chapel is dedicated to St Michael, and dates to the 13th century..

It contains the tomb of Richard Croft and his wife Eleanor (née Cornwall). Eleanor was the daughter of Sir Edmund Cornwall, Baron of Burford in Shropshire, and the widow of Sir Hugh Mortimer of Kyre Wyard and Martley, Worcestershire, who was killed in action at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460.

Garden 

The property has a walled garden than includes a vineyard, orchard and a glasshouse dating from 1908. It also has a Georgian stable block.

The estate has an avenue of Spanish Chestnut trees, oaks and beech trees.

Hill fort 

The parkland includes an Iron Age hill fort, known as Croft Ambrey.

Family 
Members of the Croft family include;
 Sir Richard Croft (1429/30-1509), royal official for Kings Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, and Henry VII
 Thomas Croft (c.1435-1488), shipowner and patron of Atlantic exploration
 Sir James Croft (c.1518-1590), lord deputy of Ireland and leading conspirator in Wyatt's Rebellion
 Sir Herbert Croft (died 1629)
 Margaret Croft (d. 1637)
 Herbert Croft (1603-1691), bishop of Hereford, chaplain to King Charles I and dean of the chapels Royal to Charles II
 William Croft (c.1678-1727), organist and composer
 Sir Herbert Croft (1751-1816), writer and lexicographer
 Sir Richard Croft (1762-1818), physician and man-midwife
 Sir Henry Page Croft (1881-1947), 1st Baron Croft, soldier and politician, Under-Secretary of State for War 1940-1945
 Sir James Herbert Croft (1907-1941), died on active service with No 1 Commando

See also
Knight v Knight (1840) 3 Beav 148

References

Category:Castles in Herefordshire
Category:National Trust properties in Herefordshire
Category:Grade I listed buildings in Herefordshire
Category:Buildings and structures in Leominster
Category:Historic house museums in Herefordshire