Herefordshire Through Time
In many ways, the Croft Castle estate is a remote and enigmatic property. Occupying a prominent ridge above the valley of the river Lugg in north Herefordshire, it encompasses woodland, parkland and bracken-covered common that provides sweeping views to the Black Mountains, and is home to woodcock and ravens.
It is no less mysterious a place historically, since although the Croft family have been in residence at the castle for the best part of a millennium (with a major hiatus from the 1740s to the 1920s), few records exist for the management of the estate. Reviewing what was known archaeologically, it was decided that some effort needed to be made to explore the undoubted potential. Since 2001 therefore, an innovative, collaborative programme of archaeological survey and investigation has developed here between The National Trust and Herefordshire Archaeology, Herefordshire Council's county archaeological service. Two years into the project, the discoveries made to date have already caused major re-interpretation of the castle's historic development and archaeological importance.
The first recorded archaeological observation about Croft was that by John Aubrey in his Monumenta Britannica (1674?), where he noted that a large double-ditched camp, "the Ambry", was to be found within "Crofts-parke". The first archaeological fieldwork in recent years was also at Croft Ambrey hillfort. This was the campaign of investigation by Stan Stanford of Birmingham University Extra-Mural Department between 1960 and 1966 (published as the monograph Croft Ambrey in 1974).
The aim in developing an archaeological programme for the Croft Estate was, from the outset in 2000, to conduct a full survey of the estate lands, and to devise a programme of closer investigation of the house environs and of the prehistoric landscape surrounding Croft Ambrey. Two years on, the survey is complete, and the exploration of the close environs of the mansion is at an advanced stage. The prehistoric project, meanwhile, is still at the planning stage.
