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.