The ruins consist merely of a shell, enclosing an area or court, and some outworks on the west, formed by two straight walls converging one to the other, and strengthened at their union by a round tower, as represented in the accompanying woodcut. At the extremity of the south wall is a grand pointed gateway, with grooves for a portcullis, which was the principal entrance. The upper part has been converted into a farm-house with considerable additions.
Tower in Uske Castle.
Like other castles of its style and period, it consists of straight walls, fortified with round and square towers, and no apertures externally but loopholes or œillets, except where these have been enlarged for modern use and convenience. Several of the apartments have chimneys—a comparatively modern refinement. The baronial hall measures forty-eight by twenty-four feet; far inferior in dimensions to some of the halls already described, but still a noble apartment, and dignified from its association with Strongbow and his knights, whose occasional rendezvous was within these walls.
At the time of the Roman occupation, this county formed part of the Silurian territory, which included also the counties of Glamorgan, Brecknock, Radnor, and Hereford; and in order to secure the conquest of this part of the country, the new masters were compelled to form a range of strongly fortified posts. No less than five stations were erected in that part of Siluria included in Gwentland, as at Caerwent, Caerleon, Abergavenny, Monmouth, and Uske. In the attempts of the Saxon monarchs to subjugate Wales, the Gwentians, or inhabitants of Monmouthshire, opposed the most formidable resistance; nor does it appear that they were ever vanquished during the Saxon period. The Conqueror, however, adopted a new and more effective mode of curbing their resistance. He directed his barons to make incursions at their own expense, and gave them leave to hold the lands they conquered in capite of the crown. These feudal tenures became petty royalties; the barons became despots, and, intrenched in their fortified castles, assumed independent sovereignty, until these baronial governments were abolished by Henry VIII., who divided Wales into counties.
The river Uske takes its rise from a lake on the northern side of the Bannau-Sir-Gaer, in Carmarthenshire, and after running first north and then east as far as Brecknock, is joined by the Honddi, which, as already described, waters the monastic vale of Ewias. It then flows south-east as far as Abergavenny, and in this part of its course is joined by the Grwyneu-fawr, and about three miles below this it enters Monmouth. The extent of its course is about sixty miles, every portion of which is distinguished more or less by scenes of pastoral and picturesque beauty—enhanced by vestiges of ancient encampments, religious edifices, and feudal strongholds. The river is spanned at Uske by a stately bridge of five arches.
The annexed woodcut, with which we close this brief notice, represents a chamber in the Castle, with an arched window and a fireplace, comparatively modern. Chimneys do not seem to have been introduced much before the time of Henry the Eighth, as appears from the following extract from Leland’s Itinerary:—“One thynge I much notyed in the haule of Bolton,” built temp. Rich. II., “how chimneys were conveyed by tunnels made in the syds of the wauls, betwyxt the lights in the haule; and by this means, and by no others, is the smoke of the harthe in the haule wonder strangely carrayed.”[355] Previously to this period, the smoke was suffered to escape from the louvre, or lantern-turret in the roof, in large halls and kitchens, the fire being made of logs of wood laid on iron or brass dogs, in the centre of the room. But in the smaller rooms, like that in the woodcut, fireplaces were built, the arches or chimney-pieces of which often remain; but the chimney itself was carried up only a few feet, where an aperture was left in the wall for the smoke to escape,[356] and there was frequently a window over the fireplace, as in the hall at Raglan.[357]
Uske is supposed to occupy the site of the Roman Burrium—the Bullæum of Ptolemy; it stands on a point of land formed by the confluence of the two rivers, Uske and Olway, and the situation is considered to be one of the most beautiful in South Wales. The successive ranges of woods and hills on each side of the river are richly varied and picturesque; while every year adds something to the natural embellishment of the scene, by the distribution of fruit and forest trees—for which the soil is naturally adapted—and that growing taste for agriculture and rural improvement which is everywhere conspicuous in the county of Monmouth. The boundaries and outlines of the valley—which is everywhere pleasing—perpetually vary as the points of view are changed; so that every change in his position opens to the spectator a new combination of features which pass before him like a moving panorama—
“Ever changing, ever new.”
