Wednesday 26 May 2021

Crickhowell Castle

 I was awake at 4.30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep.  From the bathroom, the first light was just showing an eyelash gleam above the distant hills.  When I came down at 5, the gleam was more like white eye-liner.   Coming downstairs, I pulled back the door curtain (we have an old glazed Georgian door, no longer used, on one side of the kitchen) to let the early light in and noted that even the birds were still snoozing!  Since putting these photos up they are up and doing and a Blackbird is singing in the hedge outside.

 


Before our walk last week, Tam and I  had a walk around Crickhowell (and may just have been into a certain excellent beer and cider emporium!)  Tam hadn't been to the castle remains before, so we had a wander round.  Not that there is a great deal left but I imagine half the town has bits of castle holding up the roof!  Mind you, there's still a LOT more left than there is of the castle in Builth (which we've not been to yet) as that was totally demolished and robbed and only the Motte remains.


From the photo of the drawing below, you can see which bit of the castle this was - the tower on the right.  In its time it would have been quite imposing - the motte is still there (see photos further down) and a good view of the town and surrounding hills can be had through its mop of trees.
 


Isn't Grimbald a wonderful moniker?  Pauncefoot also invites investigation. There is a Pauncefoot Hill in Romsey, Hampshire and apparently the Pauncefoot family owned the manorial land there, and nearby Embley Park (where Florence Nightingale lived) and had other manorial lands in Hampshire too.  The original Pauncefoots were "Pance-volt" (big-belly!!) and came over with William the Conqueror.  But that is by-the-by and just me going off on an enquiring adventure.

Then there are the Turbervilles.  Well, anyone who has read this blog over any period of time will be acquainted with the fact that I love the novels and poetry of Thomas Hardy and that Tess of the D'Urbervilles is my favourite of his books.  The Turbervilles, I know, had Sker House, right on the Welsh coast near Kenfig Sands.  Coity Castle was built by St Payn ("the Devil") de Turberville, one of the legendary 12 Knights of Glamorgan, who conquered that area under the guidance of Robert Fitz Hamon, Lord of Gloucester  (he died 1107.)  I imagine these Welsh Turbervilles are the relations of their brave heiress Lady Sybil.

I nearly forgot, go to THIS LINK to a fabulous blog post to learn how Lady Sybil lost her hand (not mislaid it, but had it chopped off, and WHY).  Many thanks to the author of "at home in the hills" blog.


This rather fancy-pants piece of artwork tells you all about the area and the castle and inhabitants.  I've enlarged all the little bits individually (I hope) but not the Welsh ones.



My old AA Castles in Wales book says that this was a castle of the Turbervilles so Grimbald sounds to have "married in".  The townsfolk were given aroyal grant towards the costs of walling the town in 1281 and it was made defensible against Owain Glyndwr in 1403. . .









Up on the motte, this slender pillar of stone is all that remains of a twin-towered gatehouse which once guarded it.  As we looked around us, we could here the beeping of a metal-detector as two blokes worked their way through rough ground at the bottom, looking a tad furtive . . .



Extensive views on all sides.





This is a busy through road from Brecon to Abergavenny.  Every time we've driven through, Keith has said, I'd love to live there - I think you can guess it's the old cream castellated building!



Last one, looking down the High Street towards the river.  It looked better from the human viewpoint than it does in a photo!  Anyway, we went into one of the shops there as we were interested in paper lamps they had in their window display, but they'd run out so we went on to their shop in Abergavenny, and bought this one, and a similar:


At just £3.50 we thought it was a snip.

14 comments:

  1. There's certainly been a penchant in the past for recycling old buildings that we'd never get away with today! Such delightful landscapes at every turn, too, it seems. The full moon energies are doing their bit to keep a lot of us up early now. My birdies are usually chirruping madly around 4:30, so a wee bit earlier than yours for now.

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  2. Needs must I guess. If there is free stone to be had, and your needed a home, would you walk past it? There was a bad fire in Builth about 350yrs ago so I am guessing much of it went walkabouts then.

    Perhaps my birdies stay up late! or else they have all found mates so don't need to call to alert a mate. They were quiet this morning anyway.

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  3. The castle is fascinating. Even with all your info I find it hard to imagine it in its glory days.

    The lampshade is lovely. I thought it was a hand blown glass ornament.

    lizzy

    PS would some black out curtains or shades help you sleep? You must get so tired, and the days seem far too long?

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  4. It is hard to imagine when so little survives. We must rely on the history to bring it to life.

    Looking at the photo, yes, it does look rather like an ornament.

    We have internal wooden shutters which hold all but a glimmer of light from the room. I'd not been sleeping too badly - just felt devoid of energy - due I think to all these constant days of rain. Now the sun is set to shine again! Yippee!

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    1. My mother would say "If you want to sleep til 7 AM, you gotta stay up til at least 11 PM!" No early risers in my family, hahaha. Bunch of night owls and slugabeds. But my children both are up promptly 530 AM, like their dad.

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    2. I fear your mum was right - some nights recently I've been in bed between 9 and 10 p.m. as I couldn't stay awake. 8 hours later . . .

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  5. I cannot imagine living within walking distance of these things. I showed your pictures to my husband and he asked when it was built. I told him in the 1200s. He was amazed too. Very neat.

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    1. Well, we could walk to Builth Castle (well, the mound which is all that remains of it) but Tretower Castle was a walk from the car park and it was about 50 minutes' drive from here to get to the car park. The A479 - closed after a landslip following Storm Dennis in February last year - is hopefully nearly ready to open again and that will be a much quicker route.

      Wales has a LOT of castles - some built by Marcher Lords, others built by the despised English to control the Welsh. You can imagine that didn't go down too well.

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  6. Super castle and thanks for all the history. I really do like visiting motte and bailey castles even if there isn't much left as you can let your imagination run riot. Lovely photos too :) I've been buying a few books from Logaston press on Herefordshire and have one on the Lady of Hay and also possibly the Marcher Lords (I left them at home to read so can't check all the titles at the moment). Also one on the Mappa Mundi and another on Herefordshire Dovecotes. In fact I bought 6 - OH not happy!!!

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    1. Well, if you didn't buy them for yourself, no-one else would step up, by the sound of things! There's a lovely book on the Marcher Lords in the shop where we get our paper from in town, and I am SO tempted!

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  7. ps Just remembered one as in the sale and on the Treasures of Salop Churches and another on 14th century churches Herefordshire.

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  8. Goodness, life was tough back then! I was surprised that none of the three women died of blood loss or infection after the amputations. Thank you for a most interesting post.

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    1. I suspect cauterisation may have played a part- though the thought of that after the agony of amputation scarcely bares thinking about. Unless some hapless little servant girl paid the price . . .

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