Treago Castle

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Treago Castle from the entrance gate

Treago Castle is a fortified manor house in the parish of St Weonards in the English county of Herefordshire . The house, built around 1500, has been listed by English Heritage as a historical building of the first degree, in particular because of its extensive medieval architecture, its floor plan with a rectangular inner courtyard and its corner towers in the defensive wall . Nothing is left of the moat that was presumably in the past.

main building

The building was probably built by Sir Richard Mynors (approx. 1440–1528), a tax collector in Wales . The name of the mansion comes from the Welsh language: Tre (German: home or farm) and Ago (German: Jacob). One thinks that there must have been a residential building at this point before the house was built. The fortified mansion was built to fend off Welsh attacks, which never came.

The building was originally built to be particularly safe; it had a central courtyard and no outside windows. Later the courtyard area in the middle was built over in different phases and new windows were inserted into the outer walls, so that a more traditional appearance of the mansion resulted. Steinmetz characters , to those on Raglan Castle fit and William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke , are attributed, were after the visit of the Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments , AJ Taylor discovered., 1975 They correspond to those at Croft Castle , also in Herefordshire.

Treago Castle remained a private family seat, but limited viewing of the manor's interior is available at public wine tastings and local charity events.

Property and gardens

Parkland extends around the main building, which was probably converted into a landscape park at the end of the 18th century. There is no trace of a moat left, even if early plans of the property show a stream that followed the contour line over the property to the neighboring Furnace Farm . The park was neglected in the period between the 1790s and the 1840s. Four major improvements were made after about 1840:

  • a fenced garden off the road separated from the main house by a bush area called The Wilderness .
  • a fenced-in kitchen garden , equipped with well-stocked fruit trees, on the site of today's vineyard in the south of the main house.
  • a garden, partly in Tudor , partly in Italianate style, with gravel paths, grassy areas, flower beds and trimmed yew trees . It was referred to as Treago Garden in the maps of the time .
  • a long driveway as the new main entrance to the property from the east.

As of 1991, most of the roses planted on the property have been English roses by David CH Austin .

Recent history

In the 1990s, the original stables were renovated and converted into three interconnected farmhouses called Hollyhook , Coach House and Looseboxes , which are now rented out on a weekly basis as holiday farms. A modern, 11-meter-long indoor pool was also built and other renovations were carried out, e.g. B. set up a concert grand .

Behind the farms and main buildings are a connected garden and a small quarry , traces of a Japanese garden and a vineyard from which award-winning red and white sparkling wines are made.

A fountain was added in 1990, designed and manufactured by Vanessa Marston based on ideas from the Mynors family's helmet tassel . The Mynors helmet - a man who holds a bear's paw - refers to the French sound of the name ( Main - Ours ; Eng. Hand - Bear). Since 2009 there have been initiatives to heat the manor house in a more environmentally friendly way using heat pumps and a compost-based biomass heating system . The addition of a north terrace made Treago Castle a family house that can be used all year round.

Mynors family

The property still belongs to the Mynors family from Baskerville ; Sir Richard Mynors (* 1947) - the current holder of the baronet title and winemaker - and his wife, Lady Fiona Mynors , a school advisor , currently live there . The couple has lived in the main house with their three daughters Alexandra , Frances and Victoria since 1989 . When moving in, the buildings were extensively restored and modernized.

Although the family history can be traced back to the 11th century, a connection between the Mynors from Baskerville and the area around St Weonards has only been documented since the middle of the 15th century, around the time the current building was built.

Further use of the house name

In 1932 the Great Western Railway named their steam locomotive No. 5019 Treago Castle . The Castle Class locomotive bore this name for 30 years until it was decommissioned in 1962.

Individual evidence

  1. Detailed Record No. 155265: Treago . In: Images of England . English Heritage. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  2. Treago, St. Weonards, Herefordshire, England. Parks & Gardens UK, November 24, 2008, accessed July 19, 2017 .
  3. Susan Rennie: Treago Castle . Fortified England. 2009. Archived from the original on July 11, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved August 29, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fortifiedengland.com
  4. Treago Castle . In: Pastscape . English Heritage. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  5. Historic Building # 6255: Treago Castle . Herefordshire Council. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  6. ^ Anthony Emery: East Anglia, Central England and Wales . Cambridge University Press. Pp. 586-587. 2000. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  7. ^ Adrian Pettifer: English Castles: A Guide by Counties . Boydell & Brewer. 2000. Retrieved October 26, 2016.
  8. Section B, Class 6 category: "Highly commended": Treago, Sparkling 2003 ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / englishwineproducers.com
  9. A noble nose . In: Herefordshire Life . Archant Life Limited. Pp. 110-113. June 2008.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.herefordshirelife.co.uk  
  10. Gerald Nabarro: Steam nostalgia: locomotive and railway preservation in Great Britain . Routledge. 1970. Retrieved October 26, 2016.

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 54 ′ 41 "  N , 2 ° 44 ′ 33"  W.