Page images
PDF
EPUB

anno. First mentioned in Pipe Roll of 1196-1197. There is a fine large motte in a commanding situation, and a crescent-shaped bailey, now marked only by a scarp. There are some remains of masonry, and the castle was evidently an important one. It is first mentioned in the Pipe Roll of 1196, and it occurs in lists of the Mortimer castles in the 14th century. It is not far from two fords of the river Ithon. [H. W.]

These four castles are not mentioned in the Brut y Tywysogion, though the Annales Cambria mentions the capture of Bleddfa, Knighton, and Norton by the Welsh in 1262. They all command important roads. Knighton and Norton were boroughs.

CASTLES OF GLAMORGANSHIRE.

CARDIFF (Fig. 43).-The first castle of Cardiff was certainly a wooden one; its lofty mound still remains. It is placed inside a Roman station, and the south and west walls of the castle bailey rest on Roman foundations, "but do not entirely coincide with those foundations.": The Roman fort was probably ruinous when Robert Fitz Hamon placed his first castle there, as on the N. and E. sides the bailey is defended by an earthbank, in which the remains of a Roman wall have been found buried. The area of the Roman castrum was about 81 acres, and evidently the Normans found this too large, as they divided it by a cross wall, which reduces the inner fort to about 2 acres. The motte has its own ditch. The position of Cardiff was a very important base, not only as a port near Bristol, but as a point on

1 Cal. of Close Rolls, Ed. II., iii., 415, 643.

2 See "Cardiff Castle: its Roman Origin," by John Ward, Archeologia, lvii., 335.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

CASTLES OF GLAMORGANSHIRE

295

the probably Roman road which connected Gloucester with Carmarthen and beyond.'

The lands of Robert Fitz Hamon, in the next generation, passed into the hands of Robert, the great Earl of Gloucester, Henry I.'s illegitimate son. He was a great castle-builder, and it is probable that the first masonry of Cardiff Castle was his work.2

NEWCASTLE BRIDGEND.-This castle and the three which follow are all situated on or near the "Roman" road from Cardiff to St David's, of which we have already spoken. There were two castles at Bridgend, the Old Castle and the New Castle, from which the town takes its name. The site of the former is now too much cut up for any definite conclusions about it; the site of the latter has been converted into market gardens, but a motte is still standing in one corner with the ruins of a tower upon it. [H. W.] This castle is not noticed either by the Brut or the Aberpergwm version; the earliest mention known to us is in the Pipe Roll of 1184, at a time when the castles of the Earl of Gloucester were in royal custody, and this appears to have been one of them.

KENFIG.-This castle is close to the "Roman" road. The Aberpergwm Brut says that it was one of the castles of Robert Fitz Hamon, and states that in 1092 it was rebuilt "stronger than ever before, for castles prior to that were built of wood." This is a good specimen of the mixture of truth and error to be found in this 16th century MS. There is little doubt that all the first

1 See "Cardiff Castle: its Roman Origin," by John Ward, Archæologia, Ivii., 335.

2 Mr Clark thought the shell wall on the motte was Norman, and the tower Perp. But the wall of the shell has some undoubtedly Perp. windows. The Gwentian Chronicle says that Robert of Gloucester surrounded the town of Cardiff with a wall, anno IIII.

castles of the Normans in Wales were built of wood; but it is extremely unlikely that any wooden keep was replaced by a stone one as early as 1092. The town and castle of Kenfig are now almost entirely buried in sand-drifts, but the top of the motte, with some fragments of masonry upon it, is still visible. [H. W.]1 The note in the Pipe Rolls of the repair of the palicium of this castle shows that the bailey wall at any rate was still of wood in 1183. Even as late as 1232 the keep was only defended by a ditch and hedge; yet it withstood an assault from Llywelyn ap Jorwerth. The bailey is said to contain 11 acres, a most unusual size. Kenfig was a borough in Norman times, and it is possible that this large bailey was the original borough, afterwards enlarged in medieval times. There is evidence that there were burgage tenements within the bailey.

ABERAVON.-The Aberpergwm MS. says that Fitz Hamon gave Aberavon to the son of the Welsh traitor who had called him into Glamorgan. At a later period, however, we find it in Norman hands. The site of the castle has been entirely cleared away, but it had a motte, which is still remembered by the older inhabitants. [H. W.] It is not mentioned in the Brut before 1152, when it was attacked and burnt by Rhys ap Griffith.

*NEATH.-The site of the first castle of Neath was given by Richard de Granville, its owner, to the abbey of Neath, which he had founded." About the year 1111,

1 See Gray's Buried City of Kenfig, where there are interesting photographs. The remains appear to be those of a shell.

2 Annales de Margam, 1232.

3 Gray's Buried City of Kenfig, pp. 59, 150.

4 This information is confirmed by Mr Tennant, town clerk of Aberavon. 5 See Francis' Neath and its Abbey, where the charter of De Granville is given. It is only preserved in an Inspeximus of 1468.

« PreviousContinue »