Castell Carreg Cennen
For many years Castell Carreg Cennen has been
seen as the
poor brother to the world heritage castle sites such as Caernarfon,
Conway and Beaumaris built by Edward I in North Wales. Now
this
image can be dispelled for new research strongly suggests that this
castle is the princely pinnacle of Welsh castle building and was far
more sumptuous than any Edwardian castle apart from the unfinished
Caernarfon.
Standing on top of a 200' high limestone cliff Castell Carreg
Cennen dominates the mountains and valleys of Deheubarth and controls
the passage to the sea at Swansea. The site was first used by
prehistoric man and Roman coins have been found in the clearances of
the castle. The name is first mentioned before 1143 and there
seems little doubt that a castle of some description stood here from
that date onwards. Unmentioned in the brutal wars that
scarred
Deheubarth in the twelfth century the castle first finds prominence in
the Welsh Chronicles
for 1246 where it was
wrongly reported that the castle had been betrayed to the
French.
In fact royal forces were holding the castle for the legitimate
Anglo-Welsh heir and his widowed Anglo-Norman mother! In 1248
that heir, Rhys Fychan of Dinefwr (d.1271), came of age and inherited the castle with the
consent of King Henry III. During Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's
penultimate war in 1276b the castle was surrendered without a siege and
was then burned and repeatedly rebuilt in the ensuing wars, changing
hands twice in 1282 and once in 1287. The Welsh castle,
surrendered to King
Edward I
in 1277, was devastated by Dafydd ap Gruffydd in 1282 during his final
war and repaired and refortified many times after this, being heavily
rebuilt after a particularly heavy slighting by Owain Glyndwr in 1403
or 1404. In 1462 the castle was finally demolished.
To this end the
fortress can be seen as a mid thirteenth century Welsh princely answer
to White Castle
and Pembroke, which had been built on either side of the much disputed territories of
the princes of Deheubarth. The princes of Gwynedd may have been the
major power in Wales in the thirteenth century, but their rivals of the
south undoubtedly built more ornate castles if we accept current wisdom. Certainly the grandeur and style of
the Welsh-built Castell Carreg Cennen leaves Dolbadarn and Dolwyddelan
almost in the Dark Ages, but other sites are yet to be properly examined in the light of current research.
As I have often stated it is well nigh impossible to accurately assess
the date of the building of any piece of masonry. Even
‘dateable' architectural features do not help as such things
tend
to have a shorter life span than the walls in which they
stand.
Thus they are often and even regularly replaced. All that can
be
given in regard to dating is broad outlines and inferences from
occasional documentary references. What really helps in
suggesting dates is the history of a site and its owning
families. In this respect we are lucky with Castell Carreg
Cennen. The castle site has, since the coming of the Normans,
been associated with one family, that of the kings of Deheubarth and
their descendants right up until the wars of 1277 and 1282.
After
this sufficient royal records survive to allow us a pretty good idea
concerning the activities of the lords of this district after that
date. It is therefore well worth suggesting a building
chronology
for the castle remains deduced from this recent research.
It would seem that the first work built upon the possibly pre-historic
site of Castell Carreg Cennen was a fine sandstone hall or
llys.
This was possibly built under the auspices of Prince Anarawd, the
grandson of King Rhys ap Tewdwr (d.1093), in the period 1138 to 1143.
Many
would disagree upon such an early dating, because it has been taken as
fact for hundreds of years that Welsh princes did not build stone
castles, and if they did they had to be second or third rate
structures. Such ‘fact' is not based on any
contemporary
evidence, merely long established hearsay.
It should be remembered that the Welsh princes are said in contemporary
sources to have taken to the Norman method of warfare during the reign
of King
Henry I
(1100-35). It is a small jump to go from Norman style cavalry
to
Norman style castles. Indeed the earliest recorded Welsh
castles
built by the princes in this district are from the early twelfth
century. A Welsh castle was standing at Aberystwyth
in 1143 and others were in existence during this early period at
Cilsant in St Clears, Cynfael, Llanrhystud and Ystrad Meurig.
Therefore it is historically possible that some form of building or
fortification was constructed at Castell Carreg Cennen during the reign
of King
Stephen (1135-54).
Einion ap Anarawd
(bef.1143-63) or even the Lord
Rhys
(1132-97) may have been responsible for adding the first eastern
masonry defences which can still be seen at Castell Carreg
Cennen. This includes the early rectangular keep and the cistern tower
both
of which may have been built with adjoining curtain walls in the period
up to 1162. Then, quite possibly in the fighting that
occurred in
Deheubarth up to 1171, the castle was destroyed. It may well
have
lain derelict for a long time judging by the height of the remains of
the features just mentioned and built into the next phase of
construction. Some stone for the early castle seems to have
been
imported to the site from the area of the River Cennen about a mile to
the east of the fortress.
The final stage of the castle's building has long been ascribed to the
work of the Giffards of Clifford in the period 1283 to 1322. This has
mainly
been alleged as the king was not responsible for its building and the
Welsh were regarded as too ignorant to build a superbly ornamented
castle. However, as the history researched in this new book on
the
fortress has shown, the descendants of the Lord Rhys were not just
‘backwoodsmen', but were princes of the highest rank and well
known in Norman society through power, wealth, marriage and
lineage. The history uncovered has also shown that the
Giffard
tenure of Is Cennen was far from secure and that the family showed
little interest in the land. It therefore seems unlikely that
they were responsible for building such a showy and expensive castle as
Carreg Cennen. Indeed, it may only be John Giffard Senior
(d.1299)
who had sufficient reason to consider building such a castle, but his
family history shows he had little to do with the district and
apparently needed Dinefwr castle as a ‘refuge' in
1290.
After his death in 1299 Is Cennen would appear to have been held by his
widow, the Dowager Lady Margaret, until 1308. John Giffard
Junior
(d.1322) also seems to have had a full career elsewhere than Wales and
again it must be doubtful as to how much time and money he would have
had available to spend on refortifying Castell Carreg Cennen.
This is especially true after his capture and ransom at Bannockburn,
even though it must be remembered that he was referred to as
‘le
rych'.
The style of the castle also suggests a Welsh rather than an
Anglo-Norman origin. Wall passageways exist in great towers
from
the eleventh century onwards and occasionally appear in curtain walls,
as at Caernarfon; however these are in a totally different league from
those at Carreg Cennen. In Norman castles such passageways
invariably have the thin wall internally and the thick wall externally
to face the enemy. The engineer in charge of building the
wall
passages at Carreg Cennen thought the other way round would be preferable! Such features are not common and perhaps show
closest
comparison to the late thirteenth century Caernarfon castle where the
mural passages are much more advanced.
Finally, we come to the barbican and the similarities of this to other
long barbicans at various Welsh castles. At Carreg Cennen the
structure, over 100' long, has superficial similarities to those at
Castell y Bere, Dinefwr and Denbigh. Dryslwyn too has a small
barbican - or more accurately an extended gatehouse to the inner
ward. The middle and outer wards in some ways too, may be
looked
upon as large barbicans, both being impediments to reaching the inner
ward. After excavation the work at Dryslwyn is considered
Welsh
and the entrance to Dinefwr appears to be too. The barbican at
Castell y Bere covers a gateway next to a round tower. It
consists of steps rising up between two walls from a small irregular
rectangular gatetower and covered by a rectangular guards'
tower.
At the top of the steps was apparently a drawbridge which led to a
slightly projecting hole-in-the-wall gatehouse next to the round
tower. It has been alleged that this was all built by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth between 1223
and
1240, but there is no evidence for this. However this entrance does appears to be a much simpler version of the Carreg Cennen
barbican, although the structure has often been dated without
documentary or physical evidence to the 1286-87 building phase of the
castle. More likely this long barbican is from a long Welsh
tradition as suggested above.
When all this evidence is considered there seems little doubt that
Castell Carreg Cennen was a castle fit for a prince and it is possible
that the current inner ward as it stands was built by Rhys Mechyll
(d.1244) or his father, Rhys Gryg (d.1234). Rhys Mechyll was
an
Anglophile with an Anglo-Norman wife. She was to defend
Dinefwr
and Castell Carreg Cennen for the Crown and her children in the wars of
Prince Dafydd (d.1246). Further, the destruction of the castle of
Llangadog
in 1209 would have offered a good incentive for the local princes to
build a new more powerful castle in the district. It is
therefore
possible that Rhys Gryg was responsible for this act after he was
confirmed in possession of Is Cennen and the bulk of Ystrad Tywi in
1216.
It should further be noted that no well has been found at Castell
Carreg Cennen and that masonry castles built by Normans most often were
equipped with such a feature, cf. Montgomery
and Painscastle in
the early thirteenth century and the castles of Edward I in the latter
part of the century. Certainly King Henry III
(1216-72) was adamant that his castles needed secure water supplies
provided by exceptionally deep wells. Native Welsh castles
like
Criccieth, Dolbadarn, Dolwyddelan and Harlech appear to lack wells as do the nearby castles
of Dinefwr and Dryslwyn, though it should be noted that a well cum
cistern has recently been excavated at Dolforwyn, but this was apparently made
after the castle's fall to the English in 1277. There is also
a
cistern that has been found in the gate passageway at
Criccieth.
Another well cum cistern exists on top of the rock of Degannwy
castle. The lack of any proper flanking on the west front of Carreg
Cennen also argues against an English design as too does the relatively
poor ditching, especially when the amount of money Edward I spent on ditching his great castles at Harlech and Criccieth is considered.
The other additions of the ‘Welsh style' long barbican and
curiously weak and unditched outer ward could have been the act of
either Rhys Fychan (d.1271) or one of his sons, the last Welsh lords of
the district. Certainly the castle was strong enough to hold
out
during the wars of Prince Dafydd (1241-46) and during the disputes
between Rhys Fychan and his uncle in the 1250s and 1260s when other
castles in the district changed hands. Similarly, when King
Edward
I acquired the castle in 1277 he did not think that any work was
necessary at the site. Nor did his viceroy Tibotot judging by
the
money expended on munitioning, but not repairing the site.
Over a
hundred years ago a good historian, J.E. Morris, noted that during the
period 1277 to 1282 ‘comparatively small sums were spent [on
Dinefwr, Carreg Cennen and Llandovery], which points to the castles
being already in a good state of repair'. I can do no more
than
agree with this assessment.
The book Castell
Carreg Cennen
consists of 373 A4 pages with 336 diagrams, family trees and plans.
It can be purchased directly via the PayPal link below for
£39.95.
Why not join me here and at other Lost Welsh Castles next Spring? Please see the information on tours at Scholarly Sojourns.
Copyright©2011
Paul Martin Remfry