Penhow Castle

Penhow Castle is a small courtyard castle with a keep that overlooks the line of St Bride’s Brook where it passes between a fairly narrow defile, now occupied by the A48. It is privately occupied, and not open to the public, but a view of the place can be obtained from the nearby churchyard.

The polygonal courtyard was built on the northern end of a low ridge of land extending from The Knoll, a tree covered hill with an Iron Age fort on the top, and was separated from the church and settlement by a ditch. A bridge led to a simple gate arch in the curtain wall, overlooked by the three storey rectangular tower-keep, which is the oldest part of the castle today, dating to the latter 12th century. This was presumably attached to a timber palisade at the time of construction, as the courtyard wall is considered to be 13th century in date, and the southern frontage of the castle was then substantially altered in the 14th with the construction of a new gate area, and in the 15th with the hall complex, the stair tower projecting out over the ditch. Finally, an L-shaped house was added to the rear of the tower-keep and along the north wall.

Penhow was part of the lands held by Caradog of Gwent, and was absorbed into the kingdom of Morgannwg in the late 11th century. However, in 1093 Morgannwg fell under Norman dominance, and it is usually said that in 1129 Sir Roger de St Maur, a knight holding lands from the earl of Pembroke, may have erected a castle here. If so, the tower was not built by Roger but by a later generation. The curtain wall is consistent with the prominent Sir William de St Maur, a follower of Earl Gilbert Marshal in the 1240s. By 1271 his son or grandson William was lord of Penhow, in 1301 his son Roger was lord, and Rogers son John by 1337. In 1358 came another Roger, who left a daughter Isabel to succeed him. By this date, other members of the family had chosen to call themselves Seymour rather than St Maur. At the end of the 14th century John Bowles, her husband, was known as lord of Penhow, and it was the Bowles lords who founded the new hall block overlooking the moat. The castle was held by Sir George Somerset in the mid 16th century, again passing by marriage to a new family, and rather remarkably survived the Civil War intact, although this does mean older buildings have since been remodelled. Restoration of the building started in the 1970s, and is ongoing.

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