SKENFRITH CASTLE.
AMONG the numerous strong places in Monmouthshire, which, from their character and position, seem to have been thrown up during the occupation of that border territory by the Mercians and the English during the eighth and following centuries, Skenfrith holds a conspicuous place. Its fortune, moreover, was, to be adopted, like Caerleon and Grosmount, by the Norman invaders, who placed a keep upon its ancient, though inconsiderable, mound, and girdled its elevated platform with walls and towers of considerable strength, so that it became of even greater importance in the twelfth and thirteenth than in the preceding centuries. It stands in the deep valley, and upon the bank of the Munnow, five miles below the castle of Grosmount, and six above that of Monmouth on the same river, besides which it forms the south-eastern point of the celebrated Monmouthshire trilateral, Grosmount and Whitecastle being the two others, so celebrated in Border warfare, and especially in the contest between Henry III. and the Mareschals, earls of Pembroke. Churchyard writes of them as,—
Three castles fayre, are in a goodly ground,
Grosmont is one, on hill it builded was;
Skenfrith the next, in valley it is found,
The soyle about for pleasure there doth pepe.
Whit-Castle is the third, of worthie fame,
The country round doth bear Whit-Castle’s name;
A statelie seate, a lofty princely place,
Whose beauty gives the simple soyle some grace.
Unlike the elevated and rock-founded castles of Chepstow and Ludlow, the strength of Skenfrith was in the low and marshy character of its position. The Munnow flows within a few feet of its walls, and overflowed into its ample ditches, and a few yards below the castle is the bridge mentioned by Leland. Skenfrith marks the uniting point of several valleys, and even now, with the advantage of modern roads, is by no means easy of approach. Probably, in some measure on this account, it has suffered but little from additions or alterations, and as little from violence. Time, the greatest but least violent of revolutionists, has been the principal agent in the changes that have taken place, and the great obstacle to the study of the castle by the antiquary is the rich and redundant mantle of friendly ivy by which it is draped.
Skenfrith belongs to that family of castles of which Coningsborough and Launceston are the English types, and of which Brunlais, and, in some degree, Tretower, are local examples. Its keep is a cylindrical tower, with a widening or battering base, to which the elder antiquaries gave the name of a Juliet. This stands within an inclosure formed of curtains and bastion towers, in this instance forming a trapezium in plan, of which the northern and southern sides are 74 yards and 71 yards, and the eastern and western 31 yards and 59 yards. The diameters of the area, measured across the keep, are, northern and southern, 48 yards, and eastern and western, 57 yards.
The keep stands unconnected with the curtains, and nearly on the central line of the area, about ten yards from its eastern end. It crowns a low mound, about 6 feet high, and 50 feet broad at the top, evidently artificial. If the mound ever had a proper moat, it has been long filled up. The tower is now about 40 feet high, and may have been 5 feet or 6 feet more. It is a cylinder of 36 feet in diameter, with walls 7 feet thick. Ten feet above the ground is a bold, half-round string or cordon, below which the wall batters, and at the base is 10 feet thick, augmenting its diameter there to about 42 feet. The present entrance is to the west, by a doorway of 5 feet 6 inches opening, having an interior door opening inwards and probably having had an exterior door also, but the doorway is now a mere breach in the wall, with but a fragment of the rebate of its inner door. The masonry, and the absence of bar-holes, show this doorway not to be original. Probably it was opened in the Decorated period, when passive strength was less an object, and a first-floor entrance was found to be inconvenient. Such later openings are common in keeps with close basements. There is one at Pembroke.
The basement chamber is circular, 22 feet 4 inches diameter, and its floor is at the ground level. In it are two loops, with flat tops, in recesses splayed to an opening of 3 feet, of which the cills are 3 feet from the ground. The wall is quite plain, and there is no trace of a well. This chamber was 11 feet high; no doubt, a store-room, and must have been entered from the chamber above by a ladder.
The first floor, of the same diameter, was 14 feet high. This was the principal chamber. The floor was of planks resting upon four large beams laid across, the outer beams receiving the ends of some shorter timbers laid at right angles to them. The doorway points about west, and is partly over that of the basement. It was 5 feet broad, and its passage-vault was round-headed, but the ashlar dressings are gone. There is no trace of a portcullis. In the substance of the wall is a square hole, probably once containing an oaken tie, such as was used at Brunlais and at Rochester. This doorway was evidently the original and only entrance to the keep. To the right of the entrance a second door opened into a mural stair, a fragment of the cylindrical shell of which remains. This led to the second floor and battlements. For its support the external wall is thickened by a half-round buttress, solid below, and ascending to the summit. The door and the staircase are utterly ruined. In this floor are two window openings in flat-sided recesses, apparently round-headed. The windows, probably large loops, are broken away, and the ashlar face of the recesses is gone, but the relieving arch in the wall is flat pointed. Near the north recess is a corbel of Decorated aspect, 6 feet from the floor.
The second story, entered by the winding mural stair, is much obscured by ivy. Its floor was of stout plank, resting upon a large single cross-beam, of which one support, a broad plain corbel, remains; the planks fitted into a rude groove or chase, not a set-off, in the wall, which is, therefore, not diminished in thickness. The curve of this story is a little impaired by a projection connected with the stair: and there is a sort of recess, which may have been the kitchen fireplace, the cooking being usually, in these towers, carried on in an upper floor, as at Castell Coch and Morlais. There were three windows in this floor, but of them little is to be seen, nor of what may remain of the ivy-covered battlements. The main floor was plastered, though thinly. It is evident that the floors were always of timber. The main strength of a tower of this character was passive, the loops and windows counting for nothing in the defence, but no doubt the battlements had a rampart walk, and the roof, therefore, was either flat, or if conical, sprang, as at Coucy, Coningsburgh, Pembroke, and Marten’s Tower at Chepstow from an inner wall. Nothing can be more senseless than, as some modern architects have done, to cover these towers with a conical roof springing from the outer wall, which thus could not be defended in the only way possible with such structures, from above.
The curtain wall of the single ward within which this Juliet keep is placed is 8 feet thick, and from 30 feet to 40 feet high, the contained area being at a level 6 feet to 10 feet above that outside, and no doubt raised artificially. The four angle towers were cylindrical, 11 feet internal diameter, and with walls 8 feet thick. They have no internal projection, but the angle at each is crossed and filled up by a gorge wall, 7 feet long. Both towers and curtain have an exterior base about 12 feet high, battering below to a thickness of 10 feet, but without a cordon. Each tower is entered from the gorge by a door of 3 feet opening, and its basement is elevated about 4 feet or 5 feet above the inner court. Each has three loops in recesses 4 feet 5 inches deep, and 5 feet 8 inches broad. There are no staircases, though there seem to have been two upper stories, the highest rising above the curtain. The floors were of timber. The arches vary; some are round-headed, others lancet, others drop-pointed. The loops are square-headed. The south-west tower has been taken down, and the present entrance to the place is through the gap.
In the south front, 60 feet from the west end, is a half-round buttress tower, with no internal projection. The breaches in its interior and exterior faces show it to be solid. Opposite to this tower, in the north wall of the court, is a doorway of about 6 feet opening, the pointed arch of which is seen just at the level of the court. As the sill of this doorway must be at about the level of the Munnow, it was probably connected with a short canal for the admission of a boat, like what is seen at Tonbridge and Leeds Castles, and at Caerphilly. In this same wall, but close to the north-east tower, is a small, flat-sided recess, either a door or a window, and 6 feet above the court level. If a door, it must have been for the lifting of stores from a boat upon the mill-leat which flows below it.
There is no trace of a regular gatehouse to this court, but a part of the centre of the west wall has been rebuilt in an inferior manner, and probably represents the entrance. This entrance was likely to have been by a mere doorway in the curtain without a regular gatehouse, like the lesser gateway at White Castle. From this point a slightly-elevated causeway, crossing the court, leads direct to the central tower.
The walls are tolerably perfect, but the battlements have been removed, and the upper stages of the towers are in ruin. It is remarkable that the mural towers are without staircases, and there are no visible mural chambers or garderobes, or, with one doubtful exception, fireplaces, in the castle. The material is the old red sandstone of the district, as was the ashlar. The workmanship is ordinary but pretty good rubble, and the mortar coarsely mixed and freely used. The mill leat, and the Munnow immediately beyond it, form the defences on the north front. Along the other three fronts was a broad and deep ditch fed from the river, and now filled up. As the ground within the walls is 6 feet to 10 feet higher than that immediately outside, they are to that extent revetments. It is pretty clear from the appearance that the original fortress was a raised platform, in its centre a mound, and around it a wet ditch, the whole, no doubt, strongly palisaded.
SKENFRITH CASTLE.
Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.
- The Keep.
- The Probable Entrance.
- Ancient Ditches.
There is nothing of a Norman character in either the plan or details of the structure. The singular form of the area may be but an accommodation in right lines to an irregular earthwork. Had it been Roman, the platform would scarcely have been raised. The keep tower is clearly early English of the time of King John, or early in that of Henry III. The surrounding walls and towers are of the same date.
The history of Skenfrith is obscure, but it is evident that it was built simply to contain a small garrison, and not at all as a private residence. The area contains no trace of hall, chapel, or kitchen. No lines of foundation are visible, and whatever lodgings were erected were probably of timber, with roofs resting against the wall.
Skenfrith is said, at the entrance of the Normans into the district, to have been held by Bach, a son of Cadivor ap Gwaethvoed, which Gwaethvoed is the reputed ancestor of several families in Monmouthshire and East Glamorgan, and who, or his father, was likely enough to have obtained possession of it during the victorious campaign of Caradoc-ap-Griffith in 1065. The Pipe Roll of the first year of John shows the castles of Skenfrith, Llanteilo or White Castle, Kinton, and Ledbury, to have belonged to the king; and in 1205 (5 John) he granted Skenfrith, Llanteilo, and Grosmount to William de Breos, to hold them as they had been held by Hubert de Burgh, and Geoffrey, Earl of Essex, was allowed 20 marcs which he had paid to De Burgh for fortifying them. This probably was the date of the present masonry. John de Monmouth, a powerful local baron, had some claim upon these castles, which was admitted by the king; but nevertheless, in 1219, De Burgh was ordered to have seizin of the three castles forfeited by the defection of William de Breos. William’s heir was Reginald de Breos, who was in ill-health; he demurred to the decision of the king’s court. In 1220 they were held by De Burgh. In 1223 the king had occasion to send a messenger to Skenfrith, and in 1224 the Sheriff of Hereford was directed to send thither to De Burgh 2,000 quarrels (heads of cross-bow bolts), and all through the troubled reign of Henry III. these castles continued to be of great military importance. At the settlement of Wales by his son they probably were allowed to fall to ruin. With most of the surrounding property Skenfrith finally fell to the Duchy of Lancaster. As early as the time of James I. it was presented by the local jury as “ruinous and decayed, time out of the memory of man.”
The parish church, containing some fragments of early English or early Decorated date, stands a few yards west of the castle. It contains an altar tomb, bearing the effigies in a sort of trick of John Morgan, who died 2nd September, 1557, and Ann, his wife, who died 4th January, 1564. On the side of the tomb are figures in relief. The armorial bearings are,—quarterly, 1 and 4, Barry of 9, on six escutcheons, 3, 2, 1, as many lioncels rampant, 2 and 3, three towers, in the nombril point a roundel. Evidently these are the arms of Cecil, and point to the connexion claimed by that family with Wales. Another shield bears on a chevron three sprigs, between three spear-heads; crest, an arm embowed grasping a ——. John Morgan is said to have been of Wayne, in this parish.