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Today Hereford is a well known market town. It is less well known for the castle that used to be built with in the city walls and the historical events surrounding the structure.
It is sad to see that most of the buildings only survived until about 1746 when the materials were sold off and the area redeveloped into a public area. In its time the castle was described as being a grand building which was nearly as large as that of Windsor and "one of the fayrist, largest and strongest in all England".
It was designed and built by William Fitz Osberne ( Earl of Hereford 1066) around the time of the conquest. It is suggested that the castle was to replace an even older castle that was built by Ralph, son of the Count of Vixen (Earl of Hereford 1046) which was destroyed by the Welsh in 1055. The first reference to the castle being complete and running was by 1140 as there are documents detailing the king being beseiged by Geoffrey Talbot.
In 1139 Miles of Gloucester defected to Matilda, and he and Geoffrey Talbot marched on Hereford and, in turn, besieged Stephen's followers in the castle. They used the newly rebuilt cathedral as a fort, placing catapults on the tower. To the horror of the inhabitants they dug trenches through the burial ground, mixing the bodies of the long and recent dead with the earth as they raised their siege-works.
Overlooking the city of Hereford from on a high grassy escarpment to the east is a large white house. It catches the eye as you walk down Commercial Street, towards the site of Byster Gate, the eastern entrance to the city when it was surrounded by the city wall. This house is now the home of the Churchill House Museum. It is set in its own grounds, part of which has been made into a park, landscaped with numerous trees, each given as a donation and marked with a small plaque. A spacious car park, set a little distance from the house, gives the visitor a choice of a stroll down through the park, or down the gravel drive to the front entrance of the museum. Here the gravel drive sweeps in a finishing circle, and paths lead off to flower bedded lawns.
Where the lawn ends, and low iron railings separate it from the parkland, a panoramic scene of beauty and tranquility meets the eye of the beholder. With the city of Hereford spread out below, one can gaze out across a panoramic view of the western Herefordshire plane to the backdrop of the Welsh Black Mountains, ten mile in length, running north to south and some twenty miles distant.
On a clear summer's day, about mid morning, with the sun climbing into the sky behind you, this view has to be seen to be believed. Visiting this museum, one might be surprised to find that on the edge of the gravel sweep at the front entrance to the house, are three pieces of artillery. Two of them are familiar in shape and size, and are easily recognized as naval cannon, as they have a long tapered barrel, and sit on the small four-wheeled gun carriage. The mind eye sees the battle, when the air is filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder, and the splintering crash of cannonballs finding their target. But it is the third piece of artillery that is going to arouse the victor's curiosity.
It's size and the angle it is set at tells the observer that this is no ordinary cannon, but a mortar. You have in fact just been introduced to "Roaring Meg". Sadly perhaps, her roar has not been heard for many a long year, and of course will never be heard again, but there she squats, in her coat of modern black weatherproof paint, a silent testimony to a piece of English history.