Swansea Castle
| Swansea Castle | ||
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 Castle Square with the castle ruins in the background |
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| Alternative name (s): | Castell Abertawe | |
| Creation time : | 12th Century | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 37 '13 " N , 3 ° 56' 33" W | |
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Swansea Castle ( Welsh Castell Abertawe ) is a ruined castle in Wales . The ruin, classified as a Grade I cultural monument and protected as a Scheduled Monument , is located in the center of the city of Swansea and is surrounded by modern buildings.
history
The castle was built during the Norman conquest of South Wales as the 1106 Motte with bailey created. It was founded by Henry de Beaumont built, the Gower Peninsula conquered and Henry I had received as a rule. The castle was originally located on a cliff at the mouth of the River Tawe . To the south of the castle was a harbor on the beach , a branch of the river.
A first attack by the Welsh on the castle took place in 1116. In 1184 William de Beaumont had to cede Swansea to pay off debts to the king. In 1192 the castle was besieged by Rhys ap Gruffydd for ten weeks without success until the besieged under William de Londres were appalled by an English army. In 1203 King John forgave Gower and Swansea to William de Braose . In 1209/10 Swansea, like the other Williams lands, was confiscated by the King and handed over to the Earl of Pembroke for administration. William's son Reginald de Braose was able to conquer the castle in 1215 with the help of his father-in-law, the Welsh prince Llywelyn from Iorwerth , but after he had reached an agreement with the king in 1217, the castle was burned down by the Welsh under Rhys Gryg in 1217 . In 1220 Llywelyn gave the castle to Reginald's nephew John , who had also married one of his daughters. John immediately rebuilt the castle as a stone castle, but he and his descendants preferred nearby Oystermouth Castle as their primary residence. During the war of conquest of King Edward I , William de Braose, 1st Baron Braose, had the castle expanded and, after 1277, an extensive outer bailey was built in the south and west, which was surrounded by a stone wall . In the southeast of this outer bailey he had a new castle built with private apartments. After the death of Alina, the heir to the last Baron Braose in 1331, her son John Mowbray inherited the castle, who had to cede it to William Beauchamp, a descendant of Williams de Beaumont, in 1353 after a court case. In 1397 Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk was able to regain the castle in a new lawsuit, but he died in exile in 1399, so that the castle fell back to the crown. During the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr , the castle was in the hands of the insurgent Welsh from 1403 to 1406. In 1413 Thomas' son John Mowbray received Swansea back. His grandson, the 4th Duke of Norfolk, left the castle to his guardian, the Earl of Pembroke, in 1468 . With the marriage of his granddaughter Elizabeth Herbert , the castle came to Charles Somerset and remained in the possession of her descendants, the Earls of Worcester and later the Dukes of Beaufort , until the 20th century .
However, from the 14th century onwards, the castle only served as an administrative center and was no longer inhabited by its owners. On his escape, the English King Edward II sent part of his crown treasure to Swansea Castle in November 1326. After the king's capture on November 16 , the treasure was stolen . Although a number of members of the South West Wales gentry were suspected of theft, the treasure has disappeared. After the end of the Wars of the Roses , the castle also lost its military function; the fortifications were finally destroyed in 1647 by the troops of parliament during the English Civil War , after they had been occupied by royalist troops from 1642 to 1645. In the following centuries the castle was used in different ways. Part of the new castle served as the town hall, the courtyard was used as a market square. The north-east tower was used as a prison and as a debt tower , which was only closed in 1858 as one of the last in Great Britain by a resolution of Parliament. In the 19th century the castle served as a parade ground for the local militia, and the old town hall was used as a post office. A printing press was built in the castle courtyard. The castle was the heavy attacks of the Luftwaffe damaged in Swansea during the Second World War from 19 to 21 February 1941st After the Second World War, the non-medieval buildings were demolished and the castle ruins secured. In the last few years, further safety and restoration work has been undertaken on the ruins. The ruin is owned by Cadw and the site is owned by the City of Swansea. Except for guided tours on request, the ruins can only be viewed from the outside.
investment
From the old castle of the 12th and 13th centuries, which consisted of a moth and an extensive outer bailey that encircled the castle hill on three sides, only small remains of the wall have survived. The buildings visible today are the ruins of the New Castle, which was built towards the end of the 13th century on the southeast corner of the outer bailey. The complex consists of a two-story residential building on the south side, which had a hall and a private room for the lord of the castle on the upper floor. In the 14th or 15th century, the building was given a representative arcade on the south side of the second floor, based on the model of the Bishop's Palace of St David's . To the south of the building is a small round tower, which was probably provided with loopholes for firearms during the Wars of the Roses around 1449. To the north of the residential building of the Neue Burg is the northeast tower, of which the ground floor with prison cells from the 18th and 19th centuries has been preserved.
Castle Square , east of the castle ruins, was laid out in the 1990s on the site of the former outer bailey, but does not contain any remains of the medieval castle.
literature
- Diane M. Williams: Gower. A Guide to ancient and historic monuments on the Gower peninsula . Cadw, Cardiff 1998. ISBN 1-85760-073-8
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ British Listed Buildings: Swansea Castle. Retrieved June 27, 2013 .
- ↑ Ancient Monuments: Swansea Castle. Retrieved December 9, 2017 .
- ↑ 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, Her Maj. Stat. Office, 2000, ISBN 978-1-871184-22-8 , pp. 11f
- ^ A History of Swansea. Retrieved June 27, 2013 .