Castle House is a Grade II listed Georgian villa - once two townhouses - that has a commanding position at the top of Castle Street, with elegant, balconied architecture.

The hotel sits beside what remains of the old Hereford Castle moat, now just a reminder of Hereford's once strategic importance. Hereford Castle was important in the 12th and 13th century but once the Edwardian conquest of Wales took place between 1272 and 1284, it lost its significance and fell into ruin. After the Civil War in the 17th century, the castle was demolished and the area landscaped for use by local people. Castle Green, behind the hotel, now forms the heart of the city, and the old Hereford Castle moat is overlooked by our garden.

In the early 18th century, a local entrepreneur built a pair of fine Georgian villas in what was then the middle of the road facing along Castle Street. The rear of the building was added in the second half of the 19th century when the then-owner Frederick Boulton (you can see an F and B intertwined in a blocked up window from the garden) obtained permission to combine the two houses. The spine wall was simply removed and what was once two staircases for each house became the impressively wide one we have now!

In the 1920s, Castle House was a boarding house and in the 1940s, it became a genteel hotel, the finest in the city - a reputation it continues to have. The hotel is still privately-owned and run by a local farming family, the Watkins, whose Ballingham Hall farm kitchen garden provides much of the fresh, seasonal produce which is on the hotel's menus.  George Watkins is General Manager of the hotel.