Alberbury Priory, an establishment of Benedictine monks, founded by Fulk FitzWarine early in the thirteenth century, is represented by a few Gothic fragments in a farmhouse called White Abbey, close to the Severn, a long mile north-east of the village. The principal remains are the groined ceiling of the chapel, which springs from stone corbels, and has curious carvings, at the intersections of the ribs, representing the Agnus Dei, a monk's head, and an angel wrestling with the Evil One; and one or two good pointed doorways in the lower story. The monastery was suppressed in Henry the Sixth's reign, when the estate was granted to All Souls' College, Oxford.
Turning our backs upon the Severn, which here flows along in easy curves between low, red, clayey banks, we now pass through a pair of tall iron gates near Alberbury church, and make our way viâ Loton Deer Park to Wattlesborough Castle.
The walk across the Park introduces us to some picturesque bits of woodland relieved by rough, rocky dingles, where old gnarled hawthorns and hazel bushes thrive amain; while from the higher reaches of the Park there is a varied prospect over the neighbouring countryside, half English in its snug, cultivated lowlands, half Welsh where the shaggy hills loom stern and wild.
Arrived at Wattlesborough, our tramp is rewarded by the sight of the curious old farmhouse shewn in the sketch over page. In the centre, surrounded by buildings of no particular age, rises a low, massive, quadrangular tower of good ashlar masonry, with the flat buttresses characteristic of Norman work, and one or two windows of later date.
This tower, with portions of a projecting wing, formed part of the original Castle, and is very solidly constructed, the tower walls measuring as much as 7 or 8 feet in thickness. A circular stone stairway leads up to the several stages, some of the chambers retaining their rude stone fireplaces, and other simple contrivances; while on the topmost floor is a sort of closet, or prison-hole, and certain slanting ledges on the wall indicating the position of an earlier and lower roof.
There are said to have formerly been three other towers at Wattlesborough Castle, but that they were pulled down to provide stones for building the Loton Chapel, at Alberbury. Be that as it may, the Castle certainly seems to have covered more ground at one time; and the sites of two moats, a watch-tower and drawbridge, are pointed out in an orchard on the western side of the farmhouse.
Wattlesborough Castle.
Planted upon an outlying spur of the Breidden Hills, Wattlesborough must have held a position of some strategic importance, controlling with Alberbury Castle the passes of the Severn, and the road into Wales between this and Caurse Castle.