Monmouth Castle Ruins
Today's meagre ruins give little insight into this once important early Norman castle which was built by William FitzOsbern, a nephew of the Conqueror, to protect the settlement beside the confluence of the Monnow and the Wye.
The first castle, started in about 1068, probably consisted of a wooden tower inside an oval, ditched enclosure, with a surrounding timber palisade and gate. This was replaced early in the 12th century when the curtain walls and the Great Tower were built in stone. In the 13th century a Round Tower "of great height and strength" was built - and this has proved to be the last development of the fortifications. During this early period the lordship was held by Bretons who did not speak Norman French. The Castle was then entailed to the King but, after being in the hands of Simon de Montfort, passed to the House of Lancaster; the Great Hall was then built to house the courts. In the 14th century Edward II, the gay king, was briefly held captive here, and Henry of Grosmont refurbished the upper floor of the Great Tower to live in greater comfort. It was probably there that Henry V was born in 1387, but details are vague because his family was on a visit, and he was not born a prince.
The castle was in its heyday in the 15th century. The Great Hall, Great Tower and Round Tower looked over the Monnow, while towards the town were a stone gatehouse and bridge, a chapel, and a jail. But the Lancastrian lords chose to develop nearby Raglan Castle as their fortified residence and neglected Monmouth Castle. In the middle of the 16th century surveyors recorded the state of decay of both towers, the chambers and the chapel. They asked that the Gatehouse be repaired to make the jail secure, and to allow the King's auditors and tax collectors to work in comfort. Only the Great Hall had been kept in good repair, as the assizes were held within it.
In the Civil War the Castle changed hands three times and endured a short siege, during which the Great Tower was weakened by undermining. Two years after the Civil War Cromwell's soldiers demolished the Round Tower, and much of the undermined Great Tower collapsed soon after. Twenty-five years later Great Castle House was built on the site of the Round Tower, using some of the old stones. This now houses the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers, and so provides a rare example of a Norman castle fulfilling a modern military role.
Today only parts of the Great Hall (around the flagpole) and the Great Tower (to the right) survive as the ruins. The earliest remains are at the base of the Great Tower, in the form of small slit-windows low down, and a primitive course of sloping stones higher up - features which contrast with the noble windows of the later upper storey. There are also traces of a staircase which rose to a doorway on the first floor, because originally there was no entrance at ground level. To the south the single storeyed Great Hall has lost its north wall, revealing two large windows, one of which retains its mullion and transoms.