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.