Morlais Castle
| Morlais Castle | ||
|---|---|---|
 The preserved tower room of Morlais Castle |
||
| Creation time : | after 1287 | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 46 '34.7 " N , 3 ° 22' 39.7" W | |
|
||
Morlais Castle is a ruined castle in Great Britain . The once heavily fortified castle sits within an Iron Age hill fort on a limestone ridge above the valleys of Taff Gorge and Merthyr Tydfil in Wales .
history
After the conquest of Wales by King Edward I , Gilbert de Clare, Lord of Glamorgan , began to build the castle around 1287 with which he wanted to secure his rule in the north of Glamorgan . However, the region was also claimed by Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford , which led to a bitter dispute between the two magnates . In 1289, the Regent Edmund of Cornwall Clare forbade the castle from continuing. The conflict, however, turned into a violent feud . After King Edward I returned from France, Bohun turned directly to the king, who thereupon severely punished both magnates in early 1292. During the Welsh uprising from 1294 to 1295 , the castle was conquered by the rebels under Morgan ap Maredudd in 1294 . After the rebellion was put down, the king placed Glamorgan under royal administration and visited Morlais on June 15 or 16, 1295. Glamorgan was returned to Clare in October 1295, but after his death six weeks later, the remote castle was apparently never rebuilt or completed. Presumably it was abandoned a little later and fell apart. According to a representation from 1741, there were still larger remains of the wall at the time. The freely accessible remains of the castle have been protected as a Scheduled Monument since 1982 .
investment
Only a few remains of the wall remain from the castle. It consisted of a triangular inner castle and an elongated and irregularly laid out outer castle facing south . The main castle was about 60 m wide opposite the outer bailey, on the other two sides it was about 45 m long. At the north corner there was a round keep that was about 17 m in diameter. On the south side towards the outer bailey there were two towers with a D-shaped floor plan, between which the gate, which was not specially fortified, was located. The approximately 25 m long main residential building was on the west side of the core castle. The outer bailey was secured by three further towers on the east and south sides, while the terrain sloped steeply in the west. The southeast tower was built like a second keep. The ground floor is still preserved from him, the vault of which is supported by a central column. Access to the outer bailey was via a moat through a gate on the east side, which was secured by the adjoining south-eastern tower of the inner bailey. Inside the outer bailey there was a building about 20 m long on the east wall, another building was on the west side. In the north of the outer bailey there is a deep shaft that probably served as a cistern .
Web links
- Coflein: MORLAIS CASTLE, PANT, MERTHYR TYDFIL
- Castles of Wales: Morlais Castle
- Visit Merthyr Tydfil: Morlais Castle
Individual evidence
- ↑ Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales: An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan: III - Part Ib: Medieval Secular Monuments - The Later Castles from 1217 to the present , HMSO, London 2000, ISBN 1-871184-22 -3 , p. 5
- ^ Adrian Pettifer: Welsh Castles. A Guide by Counties . Boydell, Woodbridge 2000, ISBN 978-0-85115-778-8 , p. 99
- ↑ Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales: An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan: III - Part Ib: Medieval Secular Monuments - The Later Castles from 1217 to the present , HMSO, London 2000, ISBN 1-871184-22 -3 , p. 219