Welcome to Kington Town

Kington Town Council 

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Kington is to the west of Offa's Dyke so presumably^[ this land was Welsh in the 8th century CE. The land was held by Anglo-Saxons in 1066, but devastated. After the Norman Conquest Kington then passed to the Crown on the downfall of Roger de Breteuil, 2nd Earl of Hereford in 1075. Soon after 1086 and before 1108 the King gave Kington to Henry Port, who founded a new Marcherbarony in this part of the early Welsh Marches. Kington seems to have been a quiet barony and was associated with the office of sheriff of Hereford. In 1072, Adam Port, probably the great-grandson of Henry Port, rebelled and fled the country. He returned in 1074 with a Scottish army, only to flee from the resulting Battle of Alnwick to the great mirth of the Angevin court. With this his barony of Kington was taken by the Crown and became an appurtenance of the office of Sheriff of Hereford, finally being granted to William de Braose, 7th Baron Abergavenny in 1203 for £100. The castle then saw action in the Braose Wars against King John of England and was probably destroyed by royal forces in August 1216. Within a few years a new fortress was commenced at nearby Huntington Castle and Kington Castle was abandoned. All that remains of Kington Castle today is a great outcrop of rock topped by a few fragmentary earthworks. The old town clustered around the castle and Norman church on top of a defensive hill above the River Arrow. In the 13th century the new medieval town was formed at the foot of the hill and became primarily a wool-trading market town on an important drovers' road, and still thrives today.

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