The value of Warwick had doubled since the Conquest.
[Illustration: FIG. 36. Warwick. Wigmore, Hereford.]
WIGMORE, Herefordshire (Fig. 36).--We have already referred to the absurdity of identifying this place with the _Wigingamere_ of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_.[751] We have the strongest indication that the Norman castle at Wigmore was a new erection, since Domesday Book tells us that William FitzOsbern built it on waste land called Mereston.[752] This express statement disposes of the fable in the _Fundationis Historia_ of Wigmore Priory, that the castle of Wigmore had belonged to Edric the Wild, and was rebuilt by Ralph Mortimer.[753] Wigmore had only been a small manor of two taxable hides in Saxon times. Whereas it had then been unproductive, at the date of the Survey there were two ploughs in the demesne, and the borough attached to the castle yielded 7_l._ Here we have another instance of the planting of a borough close to a castle, and of the revenue which was thus obtained.
There is a very large and high motte at Wigmore Castle, of oval shape, on a headland which has been cut off by a deep ditch. The earthen banks of its first fortification still remain, enclosing a small ward, but on top of them is a wall in masonry, and the ruins of a polygonal keep;[754] also the remains of two mural towers. Half-way down the end of the headland, below the motte, is a small square court, which _may_ have been the original bailey; below it, again, is a larger half-moon bailey furnished with walls and towers. But the whole area covered is only 1 acre. The masonry is none of it earlier than the Decorated period, except one tower in the bailey wall which may be late Norman.
[Illustration: FIG. 37. Winchester. (From a plan by W. Godson, 1750.)]