Chepstow Castle

First building
   Chepstow Castle dates from 1067 onwards and was clearly designed to reinforce the new conquest by its commending position, overseeing one of the most important routes into Wales. One of the difficulties for the amateur historian is that all the men connected with it were called William apart from the occasional Roger, Henry, Nicholas or Richard and a woman, mercifully not named Wilhemina.
   William Fitz Osbern, one of William the Conqueror's staunch supporters, is credited by many historians with building the rectangular Great Tower. This is strategically positioned on the narrowest part of the high cliff ridge above the River Wye: Chepstow was the first stone castle to be built in Britain and was  constructed by masons from Normandy.The Conqueror knew he had to subdue the unruly natives and created borderland Marcher Lordships encouraging expansion into Welsh Territory. The site's Welsh name "Striguil" means "bend in the river" and Archdeacon William Coxe (a man of few words - where 1 would do!) gives 7 spellings for this and quotes from the Domesday Book (1086): "Castellum de Estrighoiel fecit Wilhelmus Comes" (Earl William built the castle of Estriguil.)

The next stages
   In 1189 Chepstow Castle passed by marriage to William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, known as the "flower of chivalry" who wed the de Clare heiress, Isabella, the "damsel of Striguil", daughter of Richard "Strongbow." He found that he now owned an outdated castle much in need of renovation: the main defences were added at this time, including Marshall's Tower. His 5 sons (one of whom was christened William and all of whom died young) strengthened the fortification and expanded the building with 2 outer cells, the Upper and Lower Baileys and west barbican. (I shall return to this fascinating character in a later post as he was active in the reigns of 4 Plantagenet kings: Henry I, Richard I, John and Henry III.)
   Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk, transformed the domestic arrangements of the castle in the later 13th century. Following the visit of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor in December 1284, work began on what is now know as Marten's Tower, then called the "New Tower." This was intended to provide fine, luxurious accommodation for guests with a private chapel and Bigod may have hoped for a return of his royal guests.

Some wooden doors in the castle have been dated by dendochronology as 800 years old. This beautiful and complex door of unusual workmanship is stored off its hinges: ask at the desk to be told where it is.

The Civil War
   Chepstow was held for the King in the first stage but was besieged and captured in October 1645: in the second stage, once more in Royalist hands, it was heavily bombarded and surrendered, the commander, Sir Nicholas Kemeys, being shot. An interesting event from the aftermath was the detention as a prisoner of Henry Marten, who had been a loose-living rake and republican for many decades and who signed the death warrant along with 58 others of King Charles I, thereby gaining notoriety as a regicide.

More modern times
  After William Gilpin's 1782 account of his 1770 tour of the Wye Valley and its promotion of the picturesque, tourist numbers increased, all in search of the strong emotions evoked by ruins and ivy. Yet, at that time, Marten's Tower was still roofed and floored and in the 19th century visitors came in through the gatehouse and "thundered at the portal for admission with a cannonball suspended on a chain." William Makepeace Thackeray, the novelist, came to the area in 1842 and reported his dinner as "the best salmon ever eaten." Knights have always had a Romantic allure and good food a different powerful attraction.
  I have discussed the imprisonment of Henry Marten, regicide, after the Civil War, in a special post and you can read about William Marshall in my brief biography of him.

  
 Your visit
   Disappointingly there is no cannon ball for you to swing: all you have to do now is buy your ticket (at the moment of writing there is a special discount on joining Cadw on site) and enjoy the ruins and the grounds. Toilets are situated in the car park - so go before you go! There is also an excellent information Centre, the Chepstow Museum and pleasant pottering by the River Wye.
   The bus station, served by many buses, is at the top of town. The no 69 will take you to Tintern Abbey and on to Monmouth with its historical associations and the 63 to Usk and its castle and nearby battlefield.
  For opening times for the castle click here.

Usk: birthplace of Alfred Russel Wallace

His achievement

  Alfred Russel Wallace was, for a long period, almost overlooked as a scientist discovering the Theory of Evolution at the same time as Darwin but recently he has received more recognition. He came from a humble background and did not have the prestige and social connections enjoyed by his richer contemporary and graciously accepted a minor role, allowing the hypothesis to be known as Darwinism.

How it happened

  Wallace was on a voyage in Malaysia, isolated from the scientific community and puzzling over questions of Natural History: when do variations between specimens mean that the creatures are of different species and how does a new species develop? This was prompted by a birdwing butterfly from Aru having 3 spots on its shiny green hind wings rather than the usual 2 or 4. (Earlier, in South America, he had seen a plain black Jaguar and asked himself similar questions). Lying ill with a fever, he recalled an essay by Malthus and there flashed upon him the "idea of the survival of the fittest" which would explain "how changes of species could have been brought about." By "fittest" he meant the strongest, most cunning, healthiest, the swiftest hunters or those with the toughest digestion but also the best adapted to their environment. 

   He sent a paper to Charles Darwin, encapsulating his ideas, and shocked him to the core as this thorough and hesitant man had not yet published his own theories. There is much lively debate over postal dates but it could be argued that Darwin kept quiet about it for a while, even using Wallace's ideas, and the rivalry certainly speeded the publication of On the Origin of Species ...  Two papers, one by each man though both were absent, were presented to the Linnaen Society on the hot evening of July 1st, 1858, to an audience apparently too sleepy to realise that the world had changed around them and all previous religiously held convictions were being challenged. It was a momentous and shattering event which would awaken everyone.

Other aspects of his life

 He was the eighth child of the family, born in this house, Kensington Cottage, Llanbadoc, near Usk in 1823. In his autobiography, My Life, he tells how he, a little boy in short frocks with long fair hair, played with his brother in the trees behind the house, cooking potatoes on a fire and fishing for lampreys. His first venture of discovery up the Amazon was arduous and ended in disaster when the ship carrying all his specimens caught fire and almost all of four years' work was destroyed. He was resilient and courageous and set off again to Malaysia. Over six feet tall, he was badly co-ordinated but tolerant when the people of the countries he visited found him amusing as he stumbled and tripped over things. Wallace bore illness and severe discomfort with great fortitude. In many ways he comes across as more lovable than Darwin and eventually his worth was recognised by the Order of Merit in 1908. There is a medallion bearing his name in Westminster Abbey.

Visiting his home town

   You can walk to Llanbadoc by going from the bus station through the shops in Usk and turning left after the river bridge, strolling along the ridge alongside the river and past his house until you come to his memorial near the churchyard, where there are family tombs.There is a pleasant picnic area and children's playground nearby or you could go on to visit Usk Castle and the site of the Pwll Melyn battle. The no 60 bus will take you to Raglan to visit its imposing castle or, in the other direction, to Caerleon with its Roman remains and museum.

Abergavenny - the Linda Vista gardens

A tranquil rest
 If you want a lovely place to relax and breathe mountain air in Abergavenny you could go to the Linda Vista gardens which are near the centre of this bustling town. There are formal parts and less cultivated sections where you can loll or picnic enjoying the sight of the Blorenge Mountain, which may have given the spot its name, translated as "beautiful view."

Origins
   The garden began as the private property of the Linda Vista Villa, built in 1875. It changed ownership several times before Abergavenny Council acquired it in 1957 to be transformed into a public park with added land to the west and south, the Castle meadows.
Planting 
   It has an intricate layout in the formal part and the quality of the planting is exceptional with a wide variety of trees and shrubs including (I am told by Oliver Barton) a Foxglove tree, an Indian Bean tree, a Judas tree, a Gingko, a huge old London Plane and a further range in the new Autumn Colour Tree Collection.  
   Landscape gardening went through several phases of fashion in past centuries and, although this is different from the work of Capability Brown, I was reminded of his words when he saw his work as akin to that of a poet or composer: "Here I put a comma, there, where it's necessary to cut the view, I put a parenthesis, there I end it with a period and start another theme." The emphasis is on the experience of the visitor and ensuring that it is harmonious and modulated.

Things to notice
   As you enter you will see ahead a wooden sculpture which depicts aspects of the history of the town. The middle section was of particular interest to me since it shows a treacherous woman supporter allowing Owain Glyndwr into the town which he then virtually destroyed. Scorch marks from his arson were found on the beams of the Tithe Barn during restoration. This might have been one of Capability Brown's commas and the full stop for me was when I sat on some pallets near the exit before realising that they are a bug hotel in progress!

Reflections
    I was aware, as I took my photographs last month, of what I believe was the habit of Victorians to look at a view with the aid of a wooden rectangle. Pointing my camera, I felt I was doing something similar and also was preserving all this for later just as Wordsworth mentally recorded his daffodils. A sonnet formed in my mind, partly because of the assonance in the name Linda Vista and partly because of the philosophical conundrum as to whether or not things continue to exist when unobserved by the human eye. Carpe diem when you are in a place like this.
                       
                              Abergavenny May

                     This breeze, sent down from mountains, calls the name,
                     breathes "Gerddi Linda Vista" to the flowers.
                     They whisper back, the message is a frame:
                     "You count millennia; we live in hours."
                      One plant claims a brief season within Spring;
                      another takes the Autumn by surprise.
                      Here are no masters and no underlings:
                      each has its day to seize our lazing eyes.
                      Captured in sunlight by my mental click,
                      they know I am a camera - so they sway
                      toss petal locks, give their green fronds a flick,
                      as if I've caught them in their negligees.
                         Yet, when I go, will they dance on and make
                         more moving selfies for the garden's sake?

   The gardens are open all year during daylight hours and open air music concerts held here as part of the Summer Festival.  Abergavenny is served by many buses: the gardens are a short walk up through town from the bus station and are located off the car park near Tudor Street. You are only 5 minutes from Abergavenny Castle where the terrible Christmas massacre took place.
   The 83 bus will take you to Raglan and its famous castle or further to Monmouth and its associations with Henry V.
 

Raglan Castle

A Toff's Castle
   Raglan Castle is stunningly imposing but less as a belligerent military fortress than as a nobleman's vast home.  It is a fortified palace in the French style with its hexagonal towers. Built by a father-and-son team, it showed off their wealth and position and saw less warfare than a smaller one such as that in Usk. Because of the relatively late dates of construction, the period was comparatively peaceful. Henry Tudor, future King Henry VII, spent some of his childhood here.

Construction - military
   Building was begun in the 15th century by Sir William ap Thomas (knighted by Henry VI) and the castle marks a transitional stage between a military fortification and a palatial residence in keeping with the growing riches and power of the family. There was the 6-sided, 5-storey Twr Melyn Gwent (yellow tower of Gwent, probably so called because of the yellow lichen growing on it) with 10 foot thick walls and surrounded by a deep water-filled moat, which could be held if the rest of the site were taken in battle. The high quality carved masonry spoke of the family's affluence. There were circular gun loops in the Kitchen Tower; the battlements and Closet Tower have machicolations from which from which the enemy could be attacked from above.

Construction - domestic and other additions
  Sir William's son, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, built the superb gatehouse block and added the residential apartments of the Fountain Court.
   William Somerset contrived the showy second-floor long gallery which would have been heated and hung with panelling, portraits and tapestries and was ideal for the sumptuous social activities of the upper classes. The Fountain Court, which once had a fountain at the centre, the base of which can still be seen, contained a range of pleasing apartments, probably for visitors. These had fireplaces and handsome windows as glass was becoming cheaper and larger sheets were available in the 16th century, a fact that William Somerset welcomed to let in light to his probably gloomy home. The family had private accommodation, the high status of which was indicated by superbly carved masonry including heraldic badges round the windows.
   Later a moat walk was created with busts of Roman Emperors in niches decorated with shells, as was the fashion of the period, and elaborate gardens were laid out with ponds, orchards and deer. The bowling green is still there to be appreciated.

  

The Civil War

   Although the Wars of the Roses had been rumbling on, the main threat to Raglan Castle came with the Civil War. The Marquis of Worcester, Henry Somerset, (grandson of William Somerset), a Catholic aristocrat, with an income then of over £24,000 p.a., was one of the richest men in the kingdom and had a household of 500. He had poured nearly a million pounds into the coffers of King Charles' war effort and now bailed him out yet again and allowed him to stay there for 3 weeks. He was therefore a prime target and made preparations for defence: the Roundheads pounded the castle relentlessly under the charge of Colonel Thomas Morgan with 1500 troops. The Marquis was hit at dinner by a musket ball but passed the incident off with a quip about his head-piece although some of the women fainted. 

   Sir Thomas Fairfax, arriving on 7th August 1646 to lead the assault, brought up Roaring Meg, a kind of super-cannon intended to lob missiles over the walls, along with others, but they were never used. Finally, letters were exchanged and a bloodless outcome reached by its surrender on 19th August 1646, after - in total - a 10 week seige, the Marquis pleading for the safety of 2 young pigeons as he left. 

   Instructions were given for the castle to be completely destroyed but this did not happen. Men with pickaxes removed the top storey of the 5 of the Great Tower. Later it was decided to "slight" the castle, render it incapable of military use: this was done to parts by undermining (inserting wood and then firing it). All traces of aristocratic life were systematically smashed or ripped out. Even the fine books in the library were wrecked and the fish killed by breaking the walls of their enclosures.

Your visit

   I have skated the surface of this castle's fascinating history and shall return to its various aspects later, in particular to the character of the Marquis of Worcester who glows from the past in rich colour. You can spend hours here lolling on the grass enjoying the superb views as well as looking for traces of the past on the walls of the courtyards such as heraldic shields, intricate stonework edging and gargoyles. There were stonemasons' marks indicating how much work each man had done. There is a small but well-stocked shop with upmarket wall hangings (and toilets - you are a little way from the village.)

Chimneypiece in long gallery, late 16th century

   The walk from the bus stop in Raglan village takes about 15 minutes heading off behind the Beaufort and is quite pleasant apart from crossing the busy dual carriageway of the A449. Raglan is served by 2 buses, the 60 which can take you to Monmouth with its connections to Henry V since it was in the castle there that he was born. and the 83 from Monmouth to Abergavenny where a brutal massacre took place one Christmas in its castle.
 
   Or you could go in the other direction on the number 60 to Usk with its castle and the nearby battle of Pwll Melyn against Owain Glyndwr's forces or further onwards to Caerleon with its Roman remains.
 
  Opening times for Raglan Castle
 
  On the bus, on your way home, you will find your mind reliving all these images.