History
The building of Tretower Court began in the early 14th century. Following the defeat of the Welsh Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and the occupation of all of Wales by the Anglo-Normans, w period of respite from armed conflicts ensued. Therefore, the owners of the small Tretower Castle, the Picards (Pychards), decided to improve their living conditions and move to a larger and more comfortable residence (a survey taken in 1305, after the death of John, son of Roger Ricard, recorded the old castle’s lack of any value).
In the first half of the 14th century, following the marriage of Amicia Picard and Ralph Bluet, Tretower fell into the hands of a new family. When Ralph died in 1322, the lands of Ystrad Yw, which included the castle and court, were declared the Amicia’s inheritance, but initially the estate passed to the English ruler because Ralph’s heir of the same name was underage. In the late 14th century, the Bluet heiress married James de Berkeley, Lord Berkeley’s second son, and Tretower changed hands again. In 1403, James, along with many other Welsh castle owners, was ordered to take steps to protect themselves against the armed forces of Owain Glyndŵr’s Welsh rebels. Tretower Castle was attacked, but Sir James Berkeley successfully repelled the attackers. The court also likely escaped serious damages. In 1404, the Battle of Mynydd Cwmdu was fought nearby between an English army commanded by Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and Owain’s Welsh army, resulting in the rebel leader’s near capture. Less than a decade later, the court served as a rallying point for Welsh archers who were to serve King Henry V in France and contribute to the English victory at the Battle of Agincourt.
James de Berkeley died in 1405, leaving his estate to his son James. His wife, Elizabeth Bluet, married again to Sir William ap Thomas, who after 1417 purchased Elizabeth’s Welsh estates from James Berkeley. The court’s next owner was William ap Thomas’s son, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke since 1468. Around the mid-15th century, he passed the estate to his half-brother, Sir Roger Vaughan. During the Civil War, he was on the Yorkist side, fighting at Mortimer’s Cross in 1461 and leading Owain Tudor to his execution after the battle. In 1465, he crushed the Carmarthenshire uprising, and in 1471, after the Battle of Tewkesbury, he pursued Jasper Tudor, which ultimately resulted in his capture and beheading at Chepstow Castle. However, he managed to significantly expand the court between 1457 (the first mention of Roger in connection with Tretower) and his death in 1471.
Roger Vaughan’s son and heir, Sir Thomas Vaughan, continued the expansion of the court in the last quarter of the 15th century, strengthening it with a defensive wall and a gatehouse. Further modernization was carried out in 1630 by Charles Vaughan, Sheriff of Brecknock, who remodeled the west wing. Charles bequeathed the court to his son, Edward Vaughan, but he died without issue, and the estate passed to his sister, Margaret, who married Thomas Morgan of Maes Gwartha. Over the following years, the court changed hands frequently but was not significantly altered. It fell into neglect by the late 18th century, serving as a barn, pigpen, and warehouse. It wasn’t until 1929 that the Brecknock Society appealed to the government to purchase the building. In the 1930s, it was saved through extensive renovation.
Architecture
The oldest element of the court was the rectangular north wing, measuring approximately 31.7 x 7.6 meters, situated in the early 14th century on the southeast side of the older castle, next to a stream flowing into the River Rhiangoll to the south. A quadrangular latrine turret protruded from the straight facades of the two-story building, located in the southern corner near the west wall. A second, slightly shallower latrine projection was located in the western part of the northern facade, and the third one, widest, in the eastern part of the same facade. The walls of the court were constructed primarily from long, thin slabs of local red-brown sandstone, with larger, thicker blocks reinforcing the corners. Occasionally, irregular lines of almost square stones were also placed. Architectural detailing was made of gray sandstone. The second storey was covered by a long, gabled roof, probably covered with slate or shingles, or possibly thatched.
Within the north wing, a central great hall, approximately 9 meters long and opened to a high roof, originally occupied the ground floor. As in most castles, it served as a state room, a place for feasts, ceremonies, and important meetings. It was likely separated from the entrance on the eastern side by a wooden screen. The upper floor, initially accessible by internal wooden stairs, housed a private chamber (solar) and a bedroom, both in the western part, while the eastern side housed an additional living space, perhaps of lower status (e.g. for guests). The building was originally lit by simple pointed windows, and heated by fireplaces with heavy pilasters supporting the projecting hoods, although the hall may have had a more archaic central open hearth, from which smoke escaped through the roof truss and chimney. The main entrance was at courtyard level in the eastern part of the wing, through a simple pointed portal. A second, but smaller, entrance portal was placed in the western part of the building.
In the 15th century, the northern wing was rebuilt, by adding a new story in place of the open roof truss of the great hall, giving the entire building a two-story structure. Furthermore, a suspended half-timbered gallery (porch) was added to the building’s external façade on the southern side. This allowed the occupants of the upper-floor rooms to maintain greater privacy by providing separate access to each room directly from the courtyard. Interestingly, the southern wall at first-floor level (like the later eastern wall of the upper-floor of the western wing) was not made of stone, but was of half-timbered construction. It was pierced with simple, quadrangular windows closed with wooden shutters.
In the 15th century, the lower part of the northern wing began to serve utility and administrative purposes. A separate room was then created on the eastern part of the ground floor, heated by a fireplace and covered by a ceiling supported by a massive post. It was likely intended as a local courthouse, where fines and tithes were paid. It was accessible through a new entrance in the center of the eastern wall, outside which a vestibule with a mono-pitched roof was added, spanning the entire width of the building. To the west, the courtroom adjoined a narrow room with a latrine, where the steward could have worked. The next five bays formed a single space, likely for storage, up to a stone partition wall, which was then added to create a kitchen in the west. The original purpose of the rooms was retained at the top, but the new central chamber began serving as a hall, half the height of the older one, and the eastern part of the first floor was divided by wooden or half-timbered screens into two rooms with a latrine. These were likely intended for guests. To the north, a section of the wall was thickened to create a third projection, which, after bricking up one of the old slit openings, created the flue for the new fireplace in the upper hall.
In the 15th century, a long western wing was built, perpendicular to the northern wing. As with the older wing, the western building’s exterior walls were stone, with a half-timbered upper section facing the courtyard. The roof arrangement suggests that the northern wing was completed first, but there could not have been a long gap between the two construction phases. The western wall of the new wing was added to the older corner turret with latrines and was equipped with two shallow projections housing the chimney flues. On the courtyard side, the first floor may have been equipped with a porch, a continuation of the gallery in the northern wing. The windows of the new wing were more elaborate. They most often had the form of single-light openings with trefoil and ogee arch heads, as well as larger two-light windows with a transverse transom.
Inside the west wing, at ground level, was a new, two-story-high, eight meters long hall, divided into three bays. It was covered by an open roof truss with arched rafters and collar beams, as well as wind braces cut so that, together with the purlins, they formed decorative trefoils. With the exception of the western wall, the first floor level was marked by a richly moulded wooden cornice. The northern and southern walls were constructed using a post-and-plank construction, with a thinner moulded cornice marking the tie beam level. The gables of the transverse walls were formed as a series of four plastered panels with trefoil heads, above which were placed two more trefoils flanking the quatrefoil, giving the hall a richly decorated appearance. Heating was provided by a large fireplace placed in the center of the exterior wall, flanked by two tall windows. The window on the north side was larger and likely intended to illuminate the lord’s table.
North of the great hall was a living room (solar), heated by a fireplace and covered with a ceiling. In the southern part of the building, there was a two-story-high hall for servants and armed men staying in the court, initially heated only by portable stoves. Adjacent to this chamber, at ground level to the north, were four small rooms where meals and drinks were prepared. Between these and the great hall to the north, a 1.8-meter-wide transverse servants’ passage was squeezed in, connecting all the rooms and the courtyard (where a timber vestibule may have originally been located) with the meadows on the western side of the court. On the first floor of the west wing, with the exception of two rooms that occupied the entire height of the building, were residential chambers, accessible via stairs in the thickness of the southern wall and likely internal wooden stairs. The internal partitions on the first floor were originally created by wooden or half-timbered screens. At the end of the 15th century, a decorative, rectangular bay window was installed in the west wing facing the courtyard, pierced by four openings with cinquefoil heads. Internally, it opened onto the northern solar behind the hall.
The southern part of the court was initially occupied by an economic building, presumably intended for stables, and another building on its western side, which may have served as an outer kitchen. At their north walls, a defensive wall was erected in the last quarter of the 15th century, enclosing the courtyard on the south and east sides, creating an internal enclosed space with the two wings. The wall was fitted with segmental recesses on the ground floor facing the courtyard, presumably to save building materials, shorten construction time, and increase space. Above, the curtain walls had a prominent parapet, supported on both sides by corbels, above which a quadrangular opening for rainwater drainage was made at every third corbel. At the crown, curtains were topped with a wall-walk, protected by battlements, with merlons pierced with loopholes similar in shape to those used at Tretower Castle and White Castle (long vertical slits with two short transverse slits at different levels). However, the eastern façade of the court was designed more for symbolic, prestigious purposes than for actual defense, as the stables and kitchens behind the southern curtain wall and the lack of fortifications at the southern end of the west wing significantly weakened the court’s defensive capabilities.
The gate was located in a quadrangular, three-story gatehouse in the eastern curtain wall, opposite the service passage in the west wing. The gateway was vaulted and had a pointed arch, handsomely moulded for secular buildings, located next to a smaller, similarly moulded pedestrian gate set in the curtain wall on the northern side. The upper floor of the gatehouse was supported by massive corbels protruding from the façade. A machicolation-style voids were left between them, allowing guards to extinguish any fires that might break out on the outside of the gate or to fire on attackers. Inside the gateway, stone seats were placed in niches on the sides, as well as stairs in the thickness of the southern wall, leading to the upper floor and the wall-walk at the crown. The upper floor of the gatehouse contained a single room, heated by a corner fireplace and lit by large, single-light windows with cinquefoil tracery set in rectangular, moulded frames.
Current state
Tretower Court is a unique, now very rare example of a medieval building that has avoided damages and significant alterations over the centuries. Early modern changes were limited primarily to the west wing, where the courtyard-facing façade was rebuilt, destroying the first-floor porch in the process and enclosing the half-timbered structure at this level with a stone facing. Furthermore, new windows were pierced, two fireplaces with prominent chimneys were added to the southern part of the west wall, and changes were made to the internal layout of the rooms. In contrast, the north wing, which lost its significance in the early modern period, was not significantly altered, nor was the gatehouse from the late 15th century and the adjacent north curtain wall. The only significant changes made to the north wing are a large east window on the first floor and a barrel-vaulted cellar, which necessitated an alternative entrance to the northwestern ground floor room. Unfortunately, the medieval buildings in the southern part of the complex have not survived, with only traces of their roofs remaining. The court, along with the nearby castle, is open to the public from March 24th to November 4th, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
bibliography:
Haslam R., The buildings of Wales. Powys (Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire, Breconshire), London 1979.
Kenyon J., The medieval castles of Wales, Cardiff 2010.
Lindsay E., The castles of Wales, London 1998.
Radford R., Tretower: the Castle and the Court, “Brycheiniog”, 6/1960.
Radford R., Robinson D., Tretower Court and Castle, Cardiff 1990.