Longtown Castle

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Donjon and inner gatehouse of Longtown Castle 2007

Longtown Castle , formerly also known as Ewias Lacey Castle , is a ruined castle in the village of Longtown in the English county of Herefordshire . The Norman moth , which Hugh de Lacy had built around 1175, possibly on the basis of Roman earthworks , is of an unusual construction with three courtyards and two large enclosures that were supposed to protect the neighboring settlement. At the beginning of the 13th century the castle was rebuilt in stone. They received a round donjon on the mound and a gatehouse at the entrance from the western outer courtyard to the western inner courtyard. In the 14th century, Longtown Castle was in ruins. During the uprising of Owain Glyndr in 1403 it was not made usable again, but continued to deteriorate. Today the ruin is under the management of English Heritage and serves as a tourist attraction.

history

Previous fortifications

It is not certain when the first fortress was built in Longtown. The first defenses could have been built in the Iron Age , Roman, or Anglo-Saxon period, but there is no evidence of this. If Roman defenses were actually built on the site, it was probably because of the Roman road that passed there, and these defenses were probably used in the construction of the current castle, whose earthworks have right-angled corners, as was common with Roman forts. but usually not in 12th century English castles.

First castle

Floor plan of the castle: A - northern enclosure of the settlement; B - Mound; C - east courtyard; D - inner western courtyard; E - outer western courtyard; F - southern enclosure of the settlement

After the Norman conquest of England and Wales at the end of the 11th century, a small castle was built on Pont Hedre , near the current castle ruins, for either Roger de Lacy or Pain Fitz-John to secure the river crossing there. Longtown Castle was then built to replace this first castle, probably around 1175 at the behest of Hugh de Lacy, a successful favorite of King Henry II and administrator of recently conquered Ireland . Hugh de Lacy had acquired the land around Ewias Lacey , an important Marcher Lord Territory, in the 1160s and early 1170s. The new castle was occasionally called Ewias Lacey Castle after the greater rule ; "Ewias" meant "sheep district".

Longtown Castle was laid out as a moth on an elevation along the River Monnow . There were other defendable positions on elevations nearby, but the location of the castle was strategically good as it was close to the river, an important traffic route. It had a 10 meter high mound and a castle courtyard with an unusually rectangular floor plan, 125 meters by 110 meters, divided into three parts. Two courtyards were in the west and one in the east; each could be defended separately and the total area was about 1.21 hectares. The castle was mainly made of wood in the 12th century; only a few stones were included, but they were reused in the new building in the 13th century. Two circles of earthworks to the north and south of the castle, possibly equipped with wooden palisades , enclosed the early settlement of Longtown. The region raged during the rest of the 12th century as local Welsh tribes revolted against Norman rule.

Expansion and decline

At the beginning of the 13th century, the castle was extensively rebuilt in stone. A stone donjon was built in the 1220s or 1230s in the form of a large round tower with 5 meter thick walls and three tourelles at regular intervals. A hall was created on the upper floor. These round donjons are typical of the Welsh Marches ; they are also found in Skenfrith Castle and Caldicot Castle . The reason for this construction is not known; it appears to have had few military advantages. The masonry consists of shale breakage with some items from stone ; the walls are about 4 meters thick, the foundations of the donjon are extremely flat. An inner gate to the western castle courtyards was built in a simple construction with two small tourelles and seems to have been equipped with a portcullis ; a 3 meter thick wall enclosed the remainder of the inner western courtyard and another stone wall enclosed the outer western courtyard. The knight's hall and some auxiliary buildings of the castle appear to have been in the inner western courtyard . The De Lacys cost around £ 37 to work on the castle, a huge sum at the time. Longtown settlement was believed to have been founded around the same time the castle was being built, and it initially grew and prospered.

Mound and Donjon in the Snow, 1978

The De Lacy family controlled Longtown Castle until Walter de Lacy's death in 1234. John Fitz Geoffrey then acquired the castle at a time of increased conflict potential and tension between the Welsh princes Llywelyn from Iorwerth and Dafydd ap Llywelyn and the English Marcher Lords. Then the castle fell to John Verdon and his sons, who struggled with the local lawlessness and Welsh revolts that continued until the end of the 13th century. King Edward I had temporarily confiscated the castle and the lands from John's son Theobald Verdon . In 1316 the castle fell to Bartholomew de Berghersh . It continued to serve as a fortress and in 1317 the king ordered a garrison of 30 men to be garrisoned there.

The castle lost its importance and fell to the Despensers and then to the Beauchamps in 1369 , neither of whom used the castle. King Henry IV had it fortified temporarily in response to the Owain Glyndŵr uprising in North Wales in 1403. The Nevilles acquired the property in the 15th century and it remained in the hands of the Lords of Abergavenny until the 1970s . After the plague , the population of the settlement fell sharply; the fenced-in area north of the castle was abandoned, and in the 16th century Longtown was no longer a functioning trading post.

It is not clear whether the castle or settlement played a role in the English Civil War of 1642–1645, even if cannonballs from this period were found in the castle ruins. Local oral tradition knows that the castle was razed or intentionally destroyed during the civil war . Building blocks from the castle were used to build buildings in the settlement from the 17th century. In the 18th century a house and a shop were built in the eastern courtyard, along with a courtyard and a garden. A gallows was used in the castle until 1790. Furthermore, new buildings intervened in the castle ruins. At the end of the 19th century, a school and another house, Castle Lodge , had been built on the castle grounds. Other buildings were built from the outside against the castle walls.

20th and 21st centuries

In the 1970s, the Ministry of Works acquired Longtown Castle. The castle ruins were in poor condition and extensive restoration work had to be carried out, for example the removal of many buildings that had been built along the walls in modern times. Today, in the 21st century, the central part of Longtown Castle with the ruins of the donjon, the inner gatehouse and the fragments of the curtain wall is operated by English Heritage as a tourist attraction, even if the more distant earthworks are on private property. The castle ruins are considered a Scheduled Monument .

Web links

Commons : Longtown Castle  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Victoria Buteux: Archaeological Assessment of Longtown, Hereford and Worcester . English Heritage and Worcestershire County Council. 2005. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i History and Research: Longtown Castle . English Heritage. 2004. Retrieved December 10, 2012.
  3. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 27.
  4. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 5.
  5. ^ A b c d e f Victoria Buteux: Archaeological Assessment of Longtown, Hereford and Worcester . English Heritage and Worcestershire County Council. 2005. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  6. ↑ Stuart Prior: A Few Well-Positioned Castles: The Norman Art of War . Tempus, Stroud 2006. ISBN 978-0-752436-51-7 . Pp. 125, 150.
  7. ↑ Stuart Prior: A Few Well-Positioned Castles: The Norman Art of War . Tempus, Stroud 2006. ISBN 978-0-752436-51-7 . P. 150.
  8. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 6.
  9. ^ A b c Adrian Pettifer: English Castles: a Guide by Counties . Boydell Press, Woodbridge 1995. ISBN 978-0-851157-82-5 . P. 100.
  10. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 2.
  11. ↑ Stuart Prior: A Few Well-Positioned Castles: The Norman Art of War . Tempus, Stroud 2006. ISBN 978-0-752436-51-7 . P. 125.
  12. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 12.
  13. ^ Norman John Greville Pounds: The Medieval Castle in England and Wales: a Social and Political History . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994. ISBN 978-0-521-45828-3 . P. 24.
  14. ↑ Victoria Buteux: Archaeological Assessment of Longtown, Hereford and Worcester . English Heritage and Worcestershire County Council. 2005. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  15. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 7.
  16. ^ A b John Goodall: The English Castle . Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2011. ISBN 978-0-300110-58-6 . P. 181.
  17. ^ DJ Cathcart King: The Castle in England and Wales . Routledge, London 1991. ISBN 978-0-415-00350-6 . P. 99.
  18. ^ DJ Cathcart King: The Castle in England and Wales . Routledge, London 1991. ISBN 978-0-415-00350-6 . P. 50.
  19. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 14.
  20. ↑ a b Longtown Castle . Gatehouse Gazetteer. 2012. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  21. ^ DJ Cathcart King: The Castle in England and Wales . Routledge, London 1991. ISBN 978-0-415-00350-6 . P. 117.
  22. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. Pp. 14-15.
  23. ↑ Longtown Castle. Pastscape. Historic England. . English Heritage. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  24. ↑ a b c d e f Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 8.
  25. ↑ Victoria Buteux: Archaeological Assessment of Longtown, Hereford and Worcester . English Heritage and Worcestershire County Council. 2005. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  26. ^ A b c d e Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 9.
  27. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 3.
  28. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 3, 9.
  29. ↑ Nicky Smith: Longtown, Herefordshire: a Medieval Castle and Borough, Archaeological Investigation Report Series AI / 26/2003 . English Heritage, London 2003. ISSN 1478-7008. P. 1.

Coordinates: 51 ° 57 ′ 22.3 "  N , 2 ° 59 ′ 27.6"  W.