THE glaringly obvious can often be missed as, in my case, with the late realisation that Worcestershire villages with "castle" in their names, once actually had ... castles!

My latest discovery - though clearly long-known to keen historians - is the south Worcestershire site which was graced for about 350 years by a substantial castle, originally built by King John as a hunting lodge nearly eight centuries ago.

My awakening to the county's long lost castles began a few years ago, when I wrote in Memory Lane about the large and significant castle which used to dominate the area we now know as Elmley Castle, near Pershore.

It was built by William the Conqueror's Steward, Robert D'Abitot around the year 1086 and later became the seat of the Beauchamps until 1267, when William de Beauchamp inherited the earldom and castle of Warwick, and moved there.

Elmley, which had been Worcestershire's foremost castle, was allowed to fall into decay, leaving only the substantial earthworks which still survive today, as sole testimony to a once great physical feature of the south Worcestershire landscape.

And it's much the same story with another former substantial castle, about which I knew nothing, until recently taking one of Julie Meech's excellent walks, as published in the Evening News.

Yes, it was the glaring realisation that Hanley Castle, near Upton-on-Severn, had once had a castle, and a very important one at that.

Only the dried-out moat and extensive mound or hillock on which the castle stood, still remains to be seen today, set amid a small woodland just a few hundred yards from the church and centre of this extremely picturescue black-and-white village.

Hanley Castle was built by King John as a hunting lodge around the year 1207 and cost £750. King John is, of course, the monarch whose tomb stands close to the High Altar of Worcester Cathedral.

The Assizes were held at Hanley Castle in 1211 and 1212 and, early in his reign, Henry III granted the castle to Gilbert de Clare whose heir, another Gilbert, was killed at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

Hanley Castle later passed to Hugh the Despencer, but was attacked and damaged by rebel barons who hated the occupier. Hugh was executed in 1326 and, a few years later, Hanley Castle was restored to the de Clare family.

It was described in the 1400s as having several towers and apartments together with guest chambers, a great hall, gatehouse, drawbridge, chapel, kitchens, servants quarters and a mill.

The history of the castles at Elmley and Hanley crossed in the late 1400s when Hanley passed, by marriage, to the earls of Warwick.

In 1499, however, Henry VII had the young new Earl of Warwick executed as a dangerous rival, the king retaining Hanley Castle for himself, but giving custody of it to Sir John Savage.

By Henry VIII's reign the custodian had become Sir William Crompton, who sounded the death knell of Hanley Castle by having the bulk of the buildings dismantled for their stone.

Just one of the towers was left standing, as The Pool House, and served for many years as the home of the Badger family. Even so, a 17th Century historian wrote of the fate of King John's hunting lodge at Hanley: "The castell is so vanished that there appeareth nothing in that place but a little rubbish and a silly barn."

The Pool House, that sole surviving tower of Hanley Castle, was pulled down by its then owner Thomas Hornyold in 1795, in order to provide materials for repairing the river bridge at Upton-upon-Severn.

Just a comparatively short distance from Hanley Castle is another village whose place name - Castlemorton - should before now have given me the clue to its origins.

South of the church is to be found an oval mound, about six metres high and once the site of a castle, believed to have been built in the reign of King Stephen between 1135 and 1154.

It was later sold to Richard de Berking who was Abbot of Westminster from 1222 to 1246, and was recorded at that time as having a chapel. The last to be heard of this castle was in the reign of Edward I in the 13th Century.

n All the historical background information for this feature has been drawn from the hugely informative booklet, The Castles of Herefordshire and Worcestershire written by Mike Salter and published in 1989 by Folly Publications of Wolverhampton.

Worcestershire's three other main castles were those at Hartlebury and Holt, both of which still handsomely survive, and the one at Worcester, which disappeared finally in the middle of the last century. It crowned the former Castle Mound which stood just south of the Cathedral and close to the river.

The castle traced its history back to 1069 but started as a wooden structure and became nothing more than a fortress rather an impressive castellated edifice.

Mr Salter says in his book that there is also firm evidence of the existence in past centuries of castles at Leigh, Inkberrow, Strensham and Bengeworth.

n Top: A modern view of the top of the extensive mound on which once stood the impressive castle built by King John as a hunting lodge.

n Left: Land formations which were once part of the moat of surrounding the castle at Hanley Castle.