[849] The Brut also mentions the castle of Aberlleinog, and says it was built in 1096; rebuilt would have been more correct, as the “Life of Griffith ap Cynan” shows that it was built by the Earl of Chester, and burnt by Griffith, before the expedition of 1096 (really 1098), when Hugh, Earl of Shrewsbury, met with his death on the shore near this castle, from an arrow shot by King Magnus Barefoot, who came to the help of the Welsh.
[850] Mr Hartshorne in his paper on Carnarvon Castle (Arch. Journ., vii.) cites a document stating that a wall 18 perches long had been begun round the moat [possibly motam; original not given]. He also cites from the Pipe Rolls an item for wages to carriers of earth dug out of the castle.
[851] This ruined wall runs in a straight line through the wood on the ridge to the east of the town; at one place it turns at right angles; at the back of the golf pavilion is a portion still erect, showing that it was a dry built wall of very ordinary character.
[852] Roman masonry has been exposed in the bank of the station.
[853] Life of Griffith ap Cynan; Brut, 1111.
[854] Arch. Camb., iv., series 296 and 911.
[855] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle dates this expedition in 1114, and says that Henry caused castles to be built in Wales. The Brut mentions the large tribute, 1111.
[856] Brut, 1149. Madoc ap Meredith, with the assistance of Ranulf, Earl of Chester, prepared to rise against Owen Gwynedd, son of Griffith ap Cynan.
[857] D. B., i., 255a. Professor Lloyd says, “Maelor Saesneg, Cydewain, Ceri, and Arwystli came under Norman authority, and paid renders of money or kine in token of subjection.” “Wales and the Coming of the Normans,” Cymmrodor. Trans., 1899.
[858] Ibid.
[860] Brut, under 1107. The castle is called Dingeraint by this chronicler.
[861] “Ipse comes construxit castrum Muntgumeri vocatum.” D. B., i., 254.
[862] Montgomery Collections, x., 56.
[863] Close Rolls, i., 558b.
[864] “Firmiter precipimus omnibus illis qui motas habent in valle de Muntgumeri quod sine dilatione motas suas bonis bretaschiis firmari faciant ad securitatem et defensionem suam et partium illarum.” Close Rolls, ii., 42.
[865] Mr Davies Pryce has suggested that the Hen Domen, a very perfect motte and bailey within a mile of the present castle of Montgomery was the original castle of Montgomery, and that the one built by Henry III. was on a new site. This of course is quite possible, but I do not see that there is sufficient evidence for it. See Eng. Hist. Rev., xx., 709.
[866] Brut y Tywysogion.
[867] Itin., vii., 16.
[868] Pipe Rolls, 1158-1164. It should be noted that the Brut does not claim the battle of Crogen as a Welsh victory.
[869] Lyttleton’s History of Henry II.
[870] Pennant thought he saw vestiges of a castle “in the foundations of a wall opposite the ruins” [of the abbey]; but his accuracy is not unimpeachable.
[871] Pipe Rolls, 1211-1213. “For the money expended in rescuing the castles of Haliwell and Madrael, £100.”
[872] Itin., p. 67. Toulmin Smith’s edition of Welsh portion.
[873] D. B., i., 255a.
[874] Life of Griffith.
[875] Pipe Roll, 1159-1160. £4, 3s. 4d. paid to Roger de Powys “ad custodiam castelli de Dernio”; “In munitione turris de Dermant £6, 4s. 0d.” It cannot be doubted that these two names mean the same place.
[876] Arch. Camb., iv., 1887.
[877] At the time of the Survey the manor of Gresford (Gretford) was divided between Hugh, Osbern, and Rainald. Osbern had 6½ hides and a mill grinding the corn of his court (curiæ suæ). This probably is a reference to this castle. D. B., i., 268. It was waste T. R. E. but is now worth £3, 5s. 0d.
[878] “On the Town of Holt,” by A. N. Palmer, Arch. Camb., 1907.
[879] Beauties of England and Wales, North Wales, p. 589. I am glad to find that Mr Palmer, in the new edition of his Ancient Tenures of Land in the Marches of Wales, confirms the identifications which I have made of these two last castles, pp. 108, 116, 118.
[880] Arch. Camb., 5th ser., iv., 352. Camden’s statement that this castle was founded in Edward I.’s reign shows that he was unacquainted with the Pipe Rolls.
[881] Pipe Rolls, 1164-1165, and 1167-1168.
[882] Pipe Rolls, 1212-1213.
[883] “Sur l’ewe de Keyroc,” History of Fulk Fitz Warine, edited by T. Wright for Warton Club.
[884] Victoria County History of Lancashire, i., 369.
[885] England under the Normans and Angevins.
[886] “Ad recutienda castella de Haliwell et Madrael £100.” Pipe Rolls, 1212-1213.
[887] Wade Evans, Welsh Mediæval Law, vol. xii.
[888] It has in fact every appearance of a Roman camp.
[889] Brut, 1211.
[890] The castle of Hawarden, which is only about 2¼ miles from that of Euloe, is not mentioned in any records before 1215; but it is believed to have been a castle of the Norman lords of Mold. It also is on a motte.
[891] I am indebted for this identification to the kindness of Mr A. N. Palmer of Wrexham.
[892] D. B., i., 254. The manor is called Gal. It had been waste T. R. E., but was now worth 40s.
[893] Pipe Roll (unpublished), 1212-1213.
[894] Whereas there is no rock in the ditch of the neighbouring motte of Tomen y Rhodwydd. Pennant (and others following him) most inaccurately describe Tomen y Rhodwydd as two artificial mounts, whereas there is only one, with the usual embanked court. See Appendix K.
[895] “The Maer dref [which Vardra represents] may be described as the home farm of the chieftain.” Rhys and Brynmor Jones, The Welsh People, p. 401.
[896] Ordericus, ii., 218, 219 (edition Prévost).
[897] Brut y Tywysogion, 1091.
[898] Brut, 1071. “The French ravage Ceredigion (Cardigan) and Dyfed”; 1072, “The French devastated Ceredigion a second time.”
[899] A.-S. C., 1081. “This year the king led an army into Wales, and there he set free many hundred persons”—doubtless, as Mr Freeman remarks, captives taken previously by the Welsh. The Brut treats this expedition as merely a pilgrimage to St David’s!
[900] “Then the French came into Dyfed and Ceredigion, which they have still retained, and fortified the castles, and seized upon all the land of the Britons.” Brut, 1091 = 1093.
[901] Powell’s History of Wales professes to be founded on that of Caradoc, a Welsh monk of the 12th century; but it is impossible to say how much of it is Caradoc, and how much Powell, or Wynne, his augmentor.
[902] Brut, 1107.
[903] “In the Brut, Ystrad Towy does not only mean the vale of Towy, but a very large district, embracing most of Carmarthenshire and part of Glamorganshire.” Welsh Historical Documents, by Egerton Phillimore, in Cymmrodor, vol. xi.
[904] Brut, 1092.
[905] Lloyd, “Wales and the Coming of the Normans,” Cymmrodor. Trans., 1899: refers to Marchegay, Chartes du Prieurie de Monmouth.
[906] Brut, 1143.
[907] The date given is 1080, but as the dates in the Brut at this period are uniformly two years too early, we alter them accordingly throughout this chapter.
[908] Now more often called the Aberpergwm Brut, from the place where the MS. is preserved.
[909] See Freeman, Norman Conquest, v., 820; William Rufus, ii., 79; and Prof. Tout, in Y Cymmerodor, ix., 208. For this reason we do not use the list of castles given in this chronicle, but confine ourselves to those mentioned in the more trustworthy Brut y Tywysogion.
[910] The same MS. says, under the year 1099, “Harry Beaumont came to Gower, against the sons of Caradog ap Jestin, and won many of their lands, and built the castle of Abertawy (Swansea) and the castle of Aberllychor (Loughor), and the castle of Llanrhidian (Weobley), and the castle of Penrhys (Penrice), and established himself there, and brought Saxons from Somerset there, where they obtained lands; and the greatest usurpation of all the Frenchmen was his in Gower.”
[911] “Primus hoc castrum Arnulphus de Mongumeri sub Anglorum rege Henrico primo ex virgis et cespite, tenue satis et exile construxit.” Itin. Cambriæ, R. S., 89.
[912] Quoted from Duchesne in Mon. Ang., vol. vi.
[913] See Mr Cobbe’s paper on Pembroke Castle in Arch. Camb., 1883, where reasons are given for thinking that the present ward was originally, and even up to 1300, the whole castle.
[914] A motte-castle of earth and wood was certainly not regarded as “a weak and slender defence” in the time of Giraldus.
[915] Brut y Tywysogion, 1095.
[916] Bridgeman’s Hist. of South Wales, 17.
[917] Arch. Camb., 3rd ser., v., a paper on Newport Castle, in which the writer says that there are two mottes at Llanhyfer, the larger one ditched round. The Ordnance Map only shows one.
[918] Brut y Tywysogion, 1146.
[919] Patent Rolls of Henry III., 255; Fœdera, i., 161.
[920] Brut y Tywysogion, 1192.
[921] Bridgeman says that Narberth was given to Stephen Perrot by Arnulf de Montgomeri, but gives no authority for this statement.
[922] Brut, 1171.
[923] Ibid., 1107. “Earl Gilbert built a castle at Dingeraint, where Earl Roger had before founded a castle.”
[924] The castle of Aberrheiddiol is probably the name of the present castle of Aberystwyth when it was first built, as Lewis Morris says that the river Rheiddiol formerly entered the sea near that point. Quoted by Meyrick, History of Cardigan, p. 488.
[925] Brut, 1107.
[926] Brut, 1113.
[927] Ibid., 1135.
[928] Ibid., 1135, 1157, 1199, 1203, 1207.
[929] Meyrick’s Hist. of Cardigan, p. 293. Dinerth is not the same as Llanrhystyd, though Lewis (Top. Dict. Wales) says it is; the two places have separate mention in Brut, 1157. Mr Clark mentions the motte. M. M. A., i., 115.
[930] Brut, 1135.
[931] Meyrick’s Hist. of Cardigan, p. 232.
[932] Brut, 1157.
[933] Beauties of England and Wales, Cardigan, p. 502.
[934] Brut, under 1113.
[935] In the Rolls edition of the Brut this castle is called Llanstephan, but the context makes it probable that Lampeter is meant; the Annales Cambriæ say “the castle of Stephen.”
[936] Beauties of England and Wales, p. 492.
[937] Brut, 1216.
[938] Arch. Journ., xxviii., 293.
[939] Brut, 1094.
[940] Desc. Camb., i., 10.
[941] Brut, 1094.
[942] Ibid., p. 110. There is a farmhouse called Rhyd y Gors about a mile lower down than Carmarthen, and on the opposite side are some embankments; but I am assured by Mr Spurrell of Carmarthen that these are only river-embankments. Rhyd y Gors means the ford of the bog; there is no ford at this spot, but there was one at Carmarthen.
[943] See Arch. Camb., 1907, pp. 237-8.
[944] See Round’s Ancient Charters, p. 9, Pipe Roll Series, vol. x.
[945] Brut, 1113.
[946] The first mention of the castle of Llanstephan is in the Brut, 1147, if, as has been assumed above, the mention in 1136 refers to Stephen’s castle at Lampeter, as the Annales Cambriæ say.
[947] The motte of Conisburgh in Yorkshire is a very similar case known to the writer; it measures 280 × 150 feet. Such very large mottes could rarely be artificial, but were formed by entrenching and scarping a natural hill.
[948] Brut, 1256. See Arch. Camb., 1907, p. 214, for Col. Morgan’s remarks on this castle.
[949] The name Gueith tineuur is found in the Book of Llandaff, p. 78 (Life of St Dubricius), but it seems doubtful whether this should be taken to prove the existence of some “work” at Dinevor in the 6th century. See Wade-Evans, Welsh Mediæval Law, p. 337-8.
[950] Brut, 1145. “Cadell ap Griffith took the castle of Dinweiler, which had been erected by Earl Gilbert.”
[951] Gwentian Chronicle.
[952] The statement of Donovan (Excursions Through South Wales), that the castle stands on an artificial mount is quite incorrect.
[953] The Rolls edition of the Brut gives the corrupt reading Aber Cavwy for the castle of “Robert the Crook-handed,” but a variant MS. gives Aber Korram, and it is clear from the Gwentian Chronicle and Powell (p. 145) that Abercorran is meant.
[954] Brut, 1152.
[955] See paper by Mr D. C. Evans, Arch. Camb., 1907, p. 224.
[956] The first mention known to the writer is in 1285.
[957] Arch. Camb., 3rd ser., v., 346.
[958] Annales Cambriæ, 1205; Brut, 1207, 1208. The Annales call it the castle of Luchewein.
[959] Beauties of England and Wales, “Caermarthen,” pp. 192, 309.
[960] Mon. Ang., iii., 244.
[961] This motte is mentioned in a charter of Roger, Earl of Hereford, Bernard’s grandson, in which he confirms to the monks of St John “molendinum meum situm super Hodeni sub pede mote castelli.” Arch. Camb., 1883, p. 144.
[962] The dates in the Brut are now one year too early. Under 1209 it says, “Gelart seneschal of Gloucester fortified (cadarnhaaod) the castle of Builth.” We can never be certain whether the word which is translated fortified, whether from the Welsh or from the Latin firmare, means built originally or rebuilt.
[963] Beauties of England and Wales, “Brecknockshire,” p. 153.
[964] Brut, in anno. The Mortimers were the heirs of the De Braoses and the Neufmarchés.
[965] Annales Cambriæ, 1260. This may, however, be merely a figure of speech.
[966] Order to cause Roger Mortimer, so soon as the castle of Built shall be closed with a wall, whereby it will be necessary to remove the bretasches, to have the best bretasche of the king’s gift. Cal. of Close Rolls, Ed. I., i., 527.
[967] See Clark, M. M. A., i., 307.
[968] Round, Ancient Charters, No. 6.
[969] Itin., v., 74.
[970] Arch. Camb., N. S., v., 23-28.
[971] “Wales and the Coming of the Normans,” by Professor Lloyd, in Cymmrodorion Transactions, 1899.
[972] Marchegay, Chartes du Prieurie de Monmouth, cited by Professor Lloyd, as above.
[973] Brut, 1143.
[974] Not to be confounded with the castle of Clun in Shropshire.
[975] Annales Cambriæ and Annales de Margam. See plan in Arch. Camb., 4th ser., vi., 251.
[976] Annales Cambriæ.
[977] Really Ty-yn-yr Bwlch, the house in the pass. Not to be confounded with Tenby in Pembrokeshire.
[978] Cal. of Close Rolls, Ed. II., iii., 415, 643.
[979] See “Cardiff Castle: its Roman Origin,” by John Ward, Archæologia, lvii., 335.
[980] See “Cardiff Castle: its Roman Origin,” by John Ward, Archæologia, lvii., 335.
[981] 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 1111.
[982] See Gray’s Buried City of Kenfig, where there are interesting photographs. The remains appear to be those of a shell.
[983] Annales de Margam, 1232.
[984] Gray’s Buried City of Kenfig, pp. 59, 150.
[985] This information is confirmed by Mr Tennant, town clerk of Aberavon.
[986] See Francis’ Neath and its Abbey, where the charter of De Granville is given. It is only preserved in an Inspeximus of 1468.
[987] M. M. A., i., 112.
[988] Ruperra is not quite one mile from the river Rhymney. There is another site which may possibly be that of Castle Remni: Castleton, which is nearly 2 miles from the river, but is on the main road from Cardiff to Newport. “It was formerly a place of strength and was probably built or occupied by the Normans for the purpose of retaining their conquest of Wentlwg. The only remains are a barrow in the garden of Mr Philipps, which is supposed to have been the site of the citadel, and a stone barn, once a chapel.” Coxe’s Monmouthshire, i., 63.
[989] It is right to say that Colonel Morgan in his admirable Survey of East Gower (a model of what an antiquarian survey ought to be) does not connect this mound with the old castle which is mentioned, as well as the new castle, in Cromwell’s Survey of Gower. But even the old castle seems to have been Edwardian (see the plan, p. 85), so it is quite possible there were three successive castles in Swansea.
[990] Brut, 1113.
[991] Morgan’s Survey of East Gower, p. 24.
[992] Colonel Morgan’s Survey of East Gower.