BBC Digging for Britain to feature Snodhill Castle

Snodhill Castle, situated near Dorstone, will be shown on Digging for Britain.

The BBC2 programme, which will air at 8pm, is hosted by Alice Roberts, who visited Snodhill last July to check the progress on the 2023 Chapel dig and Postern Gate excavation. 

Alice Roberts visited Snodhill Castle last year (Image: Snodhill Castle)

At the time, Snodhill Castle said: "Balmy weather has helped the diggers excel in revealing five courses of fine stonework at the previously unknown postern gate (complete with two portcullises) as well as the layout of the Royal Free Chapel – and a silver longcross coin, possibly of Henry III date (one of the many Kings and Queens that escaped the Ladybird books)." 

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Thursday's episode - which can be viewed on BBC iPlayer - is the last in the six-part series. 

Called 'Forgotten Fortresses and Lost Villages', it highlights digs in the west of Britain that reveal a forgotten fortress teetering on the edge of a cliff, evidence of the oldest house in Cardiff and a discovery at a Roman mosaic that shocks the experts. 

Snodhill Castle was built around 1068 by Norman Superknight William Fitz Osbern, 1st Earl of Hereford, who was campaigning to assert Norman control along the Welsh Marches.

Today, the castle's remains include very rare 11th Century walls and portions of its unique 12th Century 13-sided tower keep with novel twin-turreted entrance.

Below, in the Inner Bailey, the newly-excavated 15th Century North Keep, and the newly-discovered chapel in the south east corner of the Bailey, are evidence of multiple phases of development.

The discovery in 2019 of window glass and in 2021 of painted wall plaster, medieval artefacts and finely cut stone indicates that the castle had extensive high-status accommodation more befitting an Earl or King.