Kenilworth Castle: a huge stunning ruin

Kenilworth Castle is ruinous and stunning to visit: it challenges the imagination to recreate it as it was and overwhelms you with its grandeur. Firstly you have to see it in your mind's eye as encompassed by a massive 111 acre artificial sheet of water, exceeding that of Caerphilly and vastly bigger than that at Bodiam. Then you can envisage it when it was refashioned by John of Gaunt and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. You can add mentally - if you are sufficiently gifted - the masques and revelry that the latter, a side-kick of Queen Elizabeth I, (literally as they did many dangerously jaunty dances together) organised in her honour.
   Warwickshire is not rich in castles as is the Marches area of Wales but Kenilworth is a star. On a windy sunny day it is unforgettable. Plus, walking round it leaves you hungry for CAKE, always a good thing.

Early history
   Between 1122 and 1129, Geoffrey de Clinton built a castle here, probably a motte and bailey structure where the present inner ward is now. The mighty keep, called Clinton's tower, is later and its impressiveness as a Norman structure is affected by the enlarging of its windows by Dudley. The kings Henry II, John and Henry III (he was probably the one who added the lake) spent vast sums in making the castle a strong fortress with 5 mural towers: Mortimer's; the Water Tower; the Warden's Tower; the Swan Tower and Lunn's Tower. John of Gaunt's Great Hall was the architectural masterpiece of the castle and was the only part that Dudley left unaltered 200 years later, presumably because it suited the grand and powerful image he wished to project.

2 exciting stories
   When Henry III had finished making the castle virtually impregnable, he unwisely gave it to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and his wife Eleanor in 1254. Ten years later, de Montfort headed the opposition of the barons even though he was a previously unpopular foreigner. He became almost the ruler and held the king's brother, Richard, captive in the castle. Prince Edward escaped, marched his forces back overnight and, because he had reliable intelligence, fell upon the younger Simon de Montfort and his superior troops as they were camping, exhausted and without posting sentinels or sending out scouts. Simon the younger swam the lake in his night shirt to enter the castle. In 1266 the royalists besieged the castle - it was extremely violent, using the latest technology - and finally succeeded in agreeing the Dictum of Kenilworth and the castle was once again royal.
   The Tudors are now a much worked-over family and we all know that Dudley was a "favourite" of Queen Elizabeth who gave him Kenilworth, one of her many indiscretions with this dashing, ostentatious beau. He lavished her bounty on the castle, demilitarising it and building Leicester's Gate-house, which is more of a house over a gate than the usual fortifying structure. He added Leicester's Building and entertained the queen on several occasions, the most noteworthy being a 19-day revelry in 1575 which cost Leicester £1000 a day in maintenance to say nothing of the incredible sum of £100,000 in entertainments which included masques, plays, tilting, sports, Morris Dancing, ceremonies and pageantry. Elizabeth was greeted by the Lady of the Lake, Mars, Apollo, Neptune and Bacchus and later enjoyed (we hope) fireworks, tumblers, Latin orations, bear-baiting and a laugh-a-minute drama about the massacre of the Danes. She never came back here.  You can read an imaginative recreation of all this in Sir Walter Scott's novel, Kenilworth. 

The present
   What you see and ramble round is a ruin which had begun to decline before it was slighted in the Civil War. The castle and manor were given to Colonel Hawkesworth and other officers who "pulled down and demolished the castle, cut down the king's woods, destroyed his park, and divided the land into farms for themselves." The lake was drained at this time by cutting the dam. Our pile is not a monument to democracy although it it represents one of the early stages in our slow progress towards that system.  You can also see John of Gaunt's hall and chamber block and have tea and CAKE in the lovely café in the stable block. There is a path to what was Henry V's Pleasaunce (private pavilion) and a Tudor garden.

I visited Kenilworth the day after Warwick Castle and much preferred the ruin. The staff are particularly friendly, it is not in any way commercialised and there were groups of well-behaved school children with clip-boards and learned faces. There is a bus connecting the 2 and so both come under my heading of History on the Buses - although Monmouthshire has many more castles. Tee hee!

I have written about Caerphilly Castle and its great lake as well as Bodiam set in its ravishing waters. There is also a post about nearby Warwick Castle. To read about medieval siege engines click here. For opening hours of Kenilworth, click here.

Pembroke Castle - moody and magnificent

Situation
   Pembroke Castle stands proud on the tip of a rocky limestone headland at the end of a town between 2 arms of the Pembroke river. The castle has always been more heavily fortified on the landward side - for obvious reasons. The site has been occupied for the past 12,000 years, although not continuously. In a cavern underneath the castle, called The Wogan, have been found stone tools left by Palaeolithic inhabitants and Roman coins. It might also have been an Iron Age fort and there have been suggestions that, in pre-Norman times, there may have been a palace or llys of a Welsh nobleman since the Normans went straight to it as if it were an existing stronghold. My camera chose to turn to sepia as I photographed the castle from the river but this only underlines its foreboding and unyielding aura.

The Normans soon turned their attention to Wales after 1066 and created a system of Marcher lords who had unilateral powers to aid them in subduing the unruly natives. Roger de Montgomery, cousin of William I, provided 60 ships for the invasion and was rewarded with the earldom of Shrewsbury in 1071. He headed to Pembroke after the death of King Rhys ap Tewdwr and founded an earthwork and timber fortification which did not have a motte. The defeat of his son, Arnulf, caused the castle to fall to Henry I.
   He appointed Gerald de Windsor as sheriff and encouraged him to marry his own discarded mistress, Princess Nest: she was the beautiful and intelligent daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr and this marriage symbolised the attempt at unification. Nest was also quite a gal and went on to have numerous affairs and offspring.
   The county of Pembroke acquired Palatine status which gave it independence and the ability to make important decisions quickly. Of the de Clares who held the castle, the most famous is Richard "Strongbow" who also founded Usk town in his spare time. He successfully invaded Ireland from Pembroke and declared himself Lord of Leinster and Governor of Ireland. The castle's fortunes were greatly improved in 1189 when his daughter and heir, Isabella, married the renowned ideal knight, William Marshal, who, as soon as he had full control, started the rebuilding in stone, beginning with the huge cylindrical keep which may be the largest in Britain. This popular family was succeeded by the hated William de Valence who, though cruel, boastful and arrogant, continued the transformation of the castle into stone as did his son, Aymer.

Later the castle declined until a temporary reprieve by Jasper Tudor, whose nephew, the future King Henry VII was born here in 1457 to the young teenager Margaret Beaufort. Anne Boleyn was Marchioness for a brief period. The next excitement was the Civil War in which Pembroke was Parliamentarian, unlike the rest of Wales. Its mayor, John Poyer, strengthened the castle but changed sides along with disaffected soldiers who had not been paid and declared for the king. Oliver Cromwell arrived around 24th May, 1648 with 6000 troops and besieged the castle, also burning nearby houses, cutting off the water supply and offering safe conduct to the garrison. He commented: "The fire runs up the town still: it frights them." After 2 months the castle surrendered to the threat of heavy guns and Poyer was unlucky in the drawing of lots for execution, being shot in Covent Garden in 1649. The castle was then slighted as was the custom so that it could no longer act as a fortress. It had never fallen to the Welsh, not even to Owain Glyn Dwr.  Only restoration in the 19th and 20th centuries by J.R. Cobb and the family who still own it, the Philipps, makes it the attraction it is today.

Your Visit
  You enter via the restored barbican and are soon on the vast outer ward or enclosure over which loom the many towers and the massive keep which dominates the inner ward. A regular guided tour leads you throughout, up and down, but I am less than intrepid in my senior years and I stayed on the grass. There was a knight school for children who were dressed up and happily pretending to ride horses and give battle, accompanied by thrilling war-whoops, when I was there. There is every sense of trying to attract visitors, particularly the young, but it is done in a pleasantly uncommercialised fashion and, if they can enthuse modern kids with a love of castles, I am only too pleased.
  No-one would claim that the castle has charm: it is a bastion of past French imperialism and uncompromising in its severity. So too, unfortunately, was the choice of CAKE in the agreeably situated cafe but I settled for small Welsh cakes and my waistline is the better for it.

I travelled by bus and rail, changing to a small train at Swansea which stopped every few minutes at tiny stations. Pembrokeshire seems to belong to another calmer, slower era - and don't expect too much of the sandwiches either: my plumping for smoked salmon with Philly was gradually transmuted into chicken and cranberries but it was freshly and willingly made.
   For opening times click here. I have written about William Marshal as lord of Chepstow on this blog as well as Owain Glyn Dwr. There is an article about the founding of Usk Town and another on the creation and history of the Marcher Lords. Enjoy!