Bleating in the Battlements of Tretower Castle … Tretower/Crickhowell

Woolly says – It had been a busy couple of weeks on the glamping site with the guests enjoying the wonderful weather, but I needed to get out and see something new. With this in mind Jo and I decided to get the facilities cleaned early in the morning and then shoot off to have a look at somewhere different.

With the jobs done we piled Hansome Jack into the car and headed south crossing into Wales and heading towards the Black Mountains to find Tretower.

Tretower Court is a medieval fortified manor house in Wales, situated in the village of Tretower, near Crickhowell. The Court had evolved from the adjacent Tretower Castle site (more about that later) and is a very rare example of its type, in that it shows the way in which a castle gradually developed into another significant type of medieval building, the fortified manor house or defended house.

Initial construction of Tretower Court dates from the early years of the 14th century, when the castle site was also still in use, the building consisted of a central ground floor hall open to its high roof, a solar or private bedchamber and a private living room. The hall probably served as a local court for paying fines and tithes and was the local meeting point from which the local contingent of Welsh archers left for service in France under King Henry V and contributed to the English victory at Agincourt.

In 1450 the property was given to Sir Roger Vaughan by Sir William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke and his half-brother, the property was to remain in the hands of successive generations of Vaughans for all of its heyday.

Sir Roger Vaughan become the richest Commoner in Wales at the height of his career. The property was sold in 1783 as the Vaughan family decided to take up occupancy at another of their properties following a marriage and Tretower Court passed out of Vaughan hands to a series of new tenants and over time some previously residential rooms were adapted as stores, barns and then even used by animals, part even becoming a piggery. The building was not maintained to the previous standards and by the early years of the 20th century the building was in danger of collapse, the roof in particular being vulnerable. In 1929 the Brecknock Society made a successful appeal for the government to purchase the building and by the 1930s it had been saved and restored for the nation, and is now in the care of Cadw, Welsh Historic Monuments.

Having parked the car and paid for our tickets we headed into the courtyard under the tower to an area that was grassy underfoot, with the lovely frontage of the house which had open balconies along some of the upper floors.

I spotted an open doorway to the right and raced in closely followed by doggy boy and the human to find ourselves in an incredibly long room, low beamed ceilings made for a shady retreat.

Next door was what appeared to be the old scullery, sadly with no information boards we had to guess to a degree what the rooms would have been used for, a large stone fireplace stood next to a much smaller oven area.

A lovely, studded door gave a glimpse of the outside as I led the way into a flagstone floored room with a beautiful preserve wooden ceiling and a wonderful window area with the panes still having the original mullioned glass.

As we entered the next room I found myself in a very formal looking dining room which was set up for lunch, I didn’t need any encouragement to take my seat at the top table and tuck into the soup and bread roll….note to self do not try and eat fake food in the future it hurts your teeth! Beautifully panelled in wood on one wall the other walls sported fabric drapes.

With a huge drape covering one wall depicting scenes from the early days of the house. Looking up I admired the high beams of the ceiling, and the arches used in them.

Across a passageway we found ourselves in what might have been part of the scullery which had shelves groaning under the weight of the ceramics and pewter dishes.

Passing under an archway we found ourselves in the kitchen area with its big open fireplace and flagons of ale on stands in one corner.

Our black and white friend decided he needed to head into the garden area which was small but beautifully laid out with a small fountain and wooden arches providing trellis for the climbing plants.

As Handsome Jack wasn’t allowed upstairs I decided to pop him in the car whilst we did that and then retrieve him for the next section, as we were heading through the courtyard again a lovely lady member of staff offered to doggy sit to save the four legged one having to sit in the car.

Woolly says – With doggy sitting in place I raced up the stairs and onto the balcony area finding a large room off to the side which contained a mammoth chess set and costumes o be tried on,

as there were no outfits of my size I headed into the next room which had the most elegant of doorways with the only catch being that the step in was a bit big for my little legs so I contended myself with peering into the Tudor bedroom with its small canopied bed and lovely beamed ceiling.

Further along the balcony we found ourselves entering another incredibly long room which would have once been split into three or four rooms, even better was hiding in the corner where I found a tiny closet, as if that wasn’t enough further along the large room was yet another toilet to admire, Sion my bestie would have been delighted.

Having dragged the mammoth out for the toilets we headed along the open walkway where we could see Jack having a lovely time below us.

Woolly says – The top of the gatehouse had also once been a room where we could see fireplaces and windows. Heading back down we collected the doggo and headed round the side of the manor house.

There in front of us was the castle remains.

Built by Roger Picard II in around 1100 it had four storeys and stone walls nine feet thick and wasn’t merely for protection. It was social climbing made visible, an open imitation of the castles at Pembroke and Skenfrith, it became known as Tretower – or ‘the place of the tower’.

As we got closer, we realised that part of the ruins was now home to a piggy family and a few chickens who were happily mooching in the dry mud.

The tower made a striking impact on the view of the mountains in the distance although it did seem to be a bleating castle.

The nearer we got the louder the bleating became which is unusual in a castle to say the least, as I peered up the tall tower I saw the cause of the noise, three intrepid goats where balanced on the ruins looking down at us.

Climbing up the steps on the opposite side to the bleating ones we found that there was little left of the gatehouse to the castle but next to it was the former kitchen with little nooks and a large fireplace.

Following the tower round we came much closer to the goats who stood and watched our progress, I waved good day to them and received a bleat in return, Handsome Jack was all for getting closer but Jo soon put a stop to that instead leading him into the interior of the tower.

Inside was wonderful with its green moses and plants providing a lovely contrast to the stone we stood staring up to the sky admiring the fireplaces and window frames that seemed suspended in thin air.

With the castle and court done we headed back to the car and drove a few miles into the nearby town of Crickhowell.

Crickhowell is a market town lying on the River Usk, on the southern edge of the Black Mountains and in the eastern part of the Brecon Beacons National Park. With all of us feeing peckish our first stop was for some lunch and a doggy ice cream for the corgi, once full we wandered through the town admiring the buildings which also included a house that looked just like a castle and a war memorial in the middle of the roundabout.

Following the road signs, we found ourselves going downhill towards the most notable feature of the town, the bridge.

Crickhowell Bridge is an 18^th century bridge that spans the River Usk, it is claimed to be the longest stone bridge in Wales at over 128 metres (420 ft) and is a Grade I listed building and a Scheduled monument.

The bridge is unusual (due to the 1828 alterations) in that it has a different number of arches upstream (12) from downstream (13) which I was eager to check out. Access to the one side meant crossing the bridge and given the amount of traffic we quickly gave up on that idea, instead we headed down a slope to the waters edge to the other side where I tried to count the arches but there seemed to be a few missing although that might be due to the restricted view that I had.

Wandering back up towards the town we paused to have a look at St Edmund’s Church, a neat looking building which was where we would find Lady Sybil Pauncefote’s effigy, Lady Sybil was infamous for having cut off her hand and sent it as a ransom payment for her husband’s release during the crusades, not many women would do that for their man!