Penrhos Castle

Penrhos Castle is a well-preserved and slightly unusual earthwork within fields used for livestock on a ridge of high ground south of Llantilio Crossenny. The earthwork is clearly visible from the public road, and there is no access to the field from the road, so any access would require establishing the ownership, and then gaining the permission of the farmer along with guidance as to how to get to it!

The earthwork consists of a six metre tall ditched motte, with a flat summit area about fifteen metres across. The ditch around the motte has been breached at the western edge, perhaps a post medieval drainage measure. Surrounding the ditch is an irregular five sided platform, itself surrounded by a ditch. This area measures perhaps 70 metres by 50, but as the diameter of the motte’s ditch is over 40 metres, the space enclosed is restricted – and indeed to the south it is crescent shaped, and to the east is restricted to a narrow walkway. The outer ditch has an upcast bank in places, and this has also been breached, on the north side, where it seems to drain away down the slope. The enclosure sits about three metres above the land outside. LIDAR imagery shows that the complex sits at the south-western corner of a larger quadrangular earthwork, perhaps 160 metres across, so there is clearly a sequence of events here that is more complex than might be expected, and to assess the castle as a motte and bailey is perhaps not the most accurate description as the motte and ditch lie entirely within the rather undersized “bailey” – and there is the outer enclosure to consider.

The manor of Penrhos was one of those founded in the 12th century by Hamelin de Ballon as part of the Lordship of Abergavenny, which from 1173 until 1230 was the property of the de Braose family. In that year, Llywelyn ab Iorwerth hanged William de Braose for committing adultery with Llywelyn’s wife, and Abergavenny passed to William de Cantilupe, who died in 1254. Cantilupe’s son was a child, and the Lordship was scheduled to remain a ward of the Crown until 1273. However young George de Cantilupe was dead by then, and Abergavenny had been granted to the de Hastings family. Penrhos was, however, not a Braose property, but was held by John de Monmouth, and in 1248 by his son, a second John. However in that year, William de Cantilupe had seized the castle of Penrhos and then surrendered it to the Crown. In 1251, however, it had been seized by rebels linked to Cantilupe, and the sheriff of Hereford was ordered to besiege and capture the castle if they didn’t surrender it on command. They did, and Cantilupe and de Monmouth were sent to arbitration. Cantilupe claimed that the castle should not have been built on his lands without permission, and the court agreed, instructing that it be demolished in 1253. It was, therefore, the subject of a violent dispute, and was perhaps never completed and only defended in timber in any case.