Newcastle (Bridgend)
| Newcastle | ||
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 Newcastle from the south with the elaborately designed castle gate |
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| Alternative name (s): | Newcastle Castle; Y Castellnewydd | |
| Creation time : | 12th Century | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 30 '30.6 " N , 3 ° 34' 55.2" W | |
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Newcastle Castle ( Welsh Castell Newydd ) is a ruined castle in Wales in Great Britain . The ruin, classified as a Grade II * cultural monument and protected as a Scheduled Monument , is located on a hill above the town of Bridgend in Glamorgan .
history
A first ring wall was constructed by Robert Fitzhamon during the Norman Conquest of Wales in 1106 to control a ford through the Ogmore River . Together with Coity and Ogmore Castle , the castle was supposed to protect the western border of the newly conquered Glamorgan. After the death of William FitzRobert , the Lord of Glamorgan, a Welsh revolt broke out in late 1183 under Morgan ap Caradog , the Lord of Afan . The castle, which was defended by the Welsh Lord Hywel of Caerleon for the English, was attacked in vain. After the revolt was put down, King Henry II took over the administration of Glamorgan until his death, although his son John was engaged to Isabel of Gloucester , the daughter and heiress of William FitzRobert. The stone curtain wall was built under the royal rule . Only a few weeks after Henry's son, Prince Johann married Isabel of Gloucester. In a unique attempt to turn the once rebellious Welsh lord into a loyal vassal, Johann turned the castle over to him. Morgan remained lord of the castle until his death around 1208, after which the castle fell to his eldest son Leison. After he had died in 1213, however, Johann did not hand the castle over to his brother Morgan Gam , but again to Isabel of Gloucester, who was divorced from him in 1199. She died childless in 1217, so that Glamorgan fell to her sister Amicia FitzWilliam , who was married to Richard de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford . Her son Gilbert de Clare gave the castle to his vassal Gilbert Turberville , who was married to a daughter of Morgan Gam, at the end of 1217 . However, since Gilbert was already the master of Coity Castle, which is only 2.5 km away, he and his descendants showed little interest in the renovation and expansion of Newcastle. For this Morgan Gam tried until his death to regain Newcastle and fought for it as best as possible the Anglo-Normans, where he burned the village of Newcastle in 1226.
Like Coity Castle, Lawrence Berkrolle inherited Newcastle after the death of the last male Turberville in 1360. In 1411 William Gamage inherited the castle, in 1584 it fell into the possession of the Earls of Leicester through the marriage of Barbara de Gamages to Robert Sidney . Although the south tower was expanded to make it more comfortable in the 16th century, the castle had lost its military importance and fell into disrepair from the end of the 16th century. In 1718 the member of parliament and landowner Samuel Edwin bought the ruin, later it came into the possession of the Dunraven family, who included it in the design of a surrounding garden in 1833. In 1932 she came into state administration.
Today the ruins are managed by Cadw and can be visited.
investment
The ruin sits on a hill above the town of Bridgend and the valley of the Ogmore River. The ring wall of the 12th century gave the shape of the ring wall that was built until 1289, so that the approximately round castle has a diameter of about 40 m. Except for the steeply sloping east side, the castle was surrounded by a moat that is now filled. The careful construction of the curtain wall and the elaborate castle gate on the south side indicate that the castle was in royal possession at the time of its construction. The representative gate, decorated with columns and decorative arches, is considered the most magnificent example of the Norman architectural style in a Welsh castle. Next to the gate are the ruins of the rectangular south tower protruding from the ring wall, of which three storeys are still partially preserved. Only the ground floor of the also rectangular west tower has been preserved. Both towers are too small to have served as a keep . In the 16th century, the south tower was made more comfortable with larger windows and chimneys. Only foundations of the buildings within the curtain wall have been preserved. A smaller building was located in the northern part of the courtyard, on the east side there were two buildings, one of which was probably the living room. No remains of a keep have survived; it was probably located in the middle of today's castle courtyard and was demolished in the Middle Ages.
literature
- Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales: An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan , Vol. III - Part I: The early castles. RCAHMW, 1991, ISBN 0-11-300035-9 , pp. 326-336
- Elisabeth Whittle: Glamorgan and Gwent. HMSO, London 1992. ISBN 0-11-701221-1 , pp. 110-111
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ British Listed Buildings: Newcastle Castle, Bridgend. Retrieved December 18, 2013 .
- ↑ Ancient Monuments: Newcastle Castle. Retrieved December 18, 2013 .
- ↑ David Crouch: Hywel ab Iorwerth (d. In or before 1216). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
- ^ Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales: An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan , Vol. III - Part I: The early castles. RCAHMW, 1991, ISBN 0-11-300035-9 , p. 328
- ^ Adrian Pettifer: Welsh Castles. A Guide by Counties . Boydell, Woodbridge 2000, ISBN 0-85115-778-5 , p. 101
- ↑ An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan , p. 336