Qualla: Castle Hedingham

Castle Hedingham: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thomas Nugent, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the morning of 22 August 1485, John de Vere - thirteenth Earl of Oxford, hereditary lord of Castle Hedingham - took command of Henry Tudor's vanguard at Bosworth Field. His was the decisive flank in the battle that ended the Wars of the Roses and put a new dynasty on the English throne. He had been raised in the keep that still rises above this village - one of the finest Norman towers in Europe, a hundred and ten feet high, its walls four metres thick at the base. Twenty generations of de Veres ran their county and their kingdom from this place. The village beneath the castle still feels like part of their household.

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Image: Thomas Nugent | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castle Hedingham: The de Veres of Hedingham

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Daw Simondaw at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. When the Domesday clerks compiled their inventory of England in 1086, the entire manor of Hedingham belonged to Aubrey de Vere I, a Norman knight rewarded for backing William the Conqueror. His grandson Aubrey de Vere III became the first Earl of Oxford in 1142 and completed the ...

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Image: Simon Daw Simondaw at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Castle Hedingham: Magna Carta to Bosworth

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Oxyman, CC BY-SA 2.0. The de Veres were almost never minor figures. Robert de Vere, the third earl, was one of the twenty-five barons elected to enforce Magna Carta against King John in 1215. Robert de Vere, the ninth earl, was favourite and possibly more than favourite of King Richard II, briefly cre...

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Image: Oxyman | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castle Hedingham: St Nicholas and Its Hammerbeams

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. Construction of the parish church of St Nicholas began around 1180. The Norman Romanesque core survives - look for the great wheel window at the east end and the cemetery cross, both more than eight centuries old. The remarkable feature, though, is the double hammerbeam roof abov...

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Castle Hedingham: Hawkwood and Bingham

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0. Sir John Hawkwood was born around 1320 in Sible Hedingham, the village next door. He served as a longbowman under the Black Prince in France, then crossed the Alps and became the most celebrated mercenary captain in Italy, leading the famous White Company through the city-states ...

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Image: Christine Matthews | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castle Hedingham: What the Village Holds

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Acabashi, CC BY-SA 4.0. Castle Hedingham today is small - about twelve hundred people in 2021, mostly in homes that were built when the de Veres still walked these streets. The castle keep stands open to visitors, restored and maintained by descendants of the Lindsay family who bought the estate in the ...

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Image: Acabashi | CC BY-SA 4.0