History
The timber castle was built shortly after the Norman invasion of England in 1066, when William the Conqueror appointed William Fitz Osbern Earl of Hereford. William expanded his lands by capturing Monmouth and Chepstow in Wales and began building castles in the conquered lands to subjugate the native inhabitants. White Castle, originally called Llantilio, was one of three timber strongholds built in the Monnow Valley at this time (the others being Grosmont and Skenfrith). It was intended to protect the route from Wales to Hereford and secure the border lands.
William Fitz Osbern was killed in 1071 at the Battle of Cassel in Flanders, and his son, Roger de Breteuil, rebelled against the king in 1075 and lost his estates. When King Henry I died in 1135 and a great Welsh uprising broke out, the new King Stephen responded by reorganizing the border marches. Transferred Llantilio Castle and the neighboring strongholds at Grosmont and Skenfrith to the control of the English Crown and created the lordship known as the “Three Castles.” After a period of détente under Henry II in the 1160s, fighting with the Welsh erupted again in 1182. The nearby castle at Abergavenny burned down, necessitating the strengthening of Llantilio’s defenses. Between 1184 and 1186, the royal official Ralph of Grosmont, Sheriff of Hereford, carried out work costing £128, building a stone defensive wall and keep, but the attack on Llantilio ultimately never took place.
In 1201, King John granted the Three Castles to Hubert de Burgh. Hubert was a small landowner who became John’s chamberlain when he was still a prince and then became an influential royal official when John inherited the throne. He began modernizing his new strongholds, starting with Grosmont, but was captured fighting in France. During his captivity, the king gave the castles of Llantilio, Grosmont, and Skenfrith to William de Braose, Hubert’s rival. However, by 1207, William had fallen out of favor with the king, and his son, also named William, became involved in what became known as the First Barons’ War. After release, Hubert regained power and influence, becoming Earl of Kent and Chief Justiciar. He took possession of the Three Castles in 1219, during the reign of King Henry III. He ruled them until 1232, when, due to the intrigues of his opponents, he was imprisoned and Llantilio Castle placed under the command of the king’s servant, Walerund Teutonicus. Hubert returned to Llantilio between 1234 and 1239, but the other castles were finally granted in 1254 to King Henry’s eldest son, Prince Edward, and to his younger brother Edmund in 1267.
In the 13th century, the castle underwent significant reconstruction. This likely took place in the 1250s and 1260s, but it is also possible that construction work began earlier, during Hubert’s reign, who would carry out the reconstruction in two stages: between 1229 – 1231 and 1234 – 1239. During this time, Llantilio was first described in documents as “White Castle,” due to the light color of its facades. Subsequently, in 1256-1257, expenditure was recorded on an outer gatehouse with portcullis and a new bridge across the outer bailey. The castle was further strengthened in 1262, when it was prepared for defense against the attack on Abergavenny by the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. However, direct fighting for White Castle did not occur at that time.
In 1267 the lordship of Three Castles was granted to Edmund, Earl of Lancaster and commander of the royal forces in Wales. From then on, Llantilio belonged to the Duchy of Lancaster for the next few centuries. However, the conquest of Wales by King Edward I in 1282 meant that all three castles lost their military significance. Minor repairs were carried out at Llantilio in the 14th and 15th centuries during the reign of King Henry VI, but by the early 16th century, White Castle had fallen into disrepair and than into ruin. By 1538, it was already described as abandoned. By the 17th century it was in such poor condition that it was not used during the English Civil War.
Architecture
The castle was built on the crest of a vast, but not very high hill with gentle slopes. Originally a timber and earth structure, was rebuilt in the second half of the 12th century. It was then enclosed by a stone perimeter of defensive wall, approximately 1.7 meters thick, oval in plan and measuring approximately 46 x 34 meters. In its southeastern part a quadrangular keep was built, measuring approximately 10 x 10 meters, with ground-floor walls up to 3 meters thick. One side of the keep adjoined the defensive wall or it projected in front of the adjacent curtain on both sides. The original entrance to the castle was from the south, allowing the keep to flank the entrance to the courtyard. The entire complex, including the outer fortifications to the south, was surrounded by a moat.
In the mid-13th century, the castle underwent a significant expansion, including the demolition of the old keep, in place of which a simple curtain wall was erected. The defensive wall was then reinforced with four semicircular towers, three and four stories high (basement, ground floor, and two upper stories), spaced relatively even around the whole perimeter. Furthermore, the gate was relocated to the north, where two massive round towers were erected, flanking the passage between them (this was one of the earliest gate complexes of this type built in the British Isles). The castle’s reorientation resulted in the relocation of the original outer bailey from the south to the new front section of the castle on the north.
The gate towers had a massive, battered plinth, ensuring the stability of the structure located next to the slope of the ditch. Inside, there were four floors separated by wooden ceilings, the lowest of which was equipped with loop holes protecting the entrance, and the upper floors were lit by windows pierced from the inner ward. A short passage, topped with an pointed barrel vault, was protected by a portcullis, two doors (blocked by drawbars placed in the wall openings) and a drawbridge, which blocked the passage when raised, and opened the stone pit. The portcullis was quite unusual, because it was added from the outside after finishing the gate, and because of that it was pulled up in the guides up to the height of the breastwork on the external facade. The north-east gate tower in the 15th century had to undergo significant repair work, probably as a result of a partial collapse. Both towers were accessible through portals in the ground floor from the side of the courtyard and portals at the height of the crown of the perimeter walls, with the eastern tower additionally connected to the gate passage. Spiral staircases in the thickness of the wall from the courtyard side ensured communication between the floors separated by wooden ceilings. For greater security, staircases were not created in one string, but exits were placed on individual floors in different places. In the eastern tower, the second floor was even omitted by the staircase, serving as a warehouse accessible by a ladder. The top floors were higher than the defensive walls and provided access to a small room above the passage, from where the portcullis was lowered and raised. Perhaps it was equipped with hoarding, although the gate opening mechanism itself, hidden only behind a wooden wall, had to be exposed to heavy missles and fire.
Four horseshoe towers of the upper ward, about 8 meters in diameter (east and west one) and about 9,7 meters (two south one), had three main floors. The entrance to the western tower led from the inner ward. The first floor was unlit and maybe only available down from the second floor, which was accessible from the level of the defensive wall. The second floor also had no openings on three sides, while the back part could have been open or closed with a timber wall. At the very top there was a combat floor, accessible from the defensive wall-walk by a dozen or so stairs. The opposite eastern tower had a similar form, but it was additionally equipped with a cylindrical basement with a depth of just over 3 meters, and the upper storey’s inner wall was made of stone, not wood. The two southern towers were slightly larger and differed with interiors of a horseshoe-shaped form (about 5.5 meters in diameter), in contrast to the cylindrical interiors of the northern towers. All the towers were crowned with battlement and probably wooden hoardings protruding from the face of the walls. The wall and towers were equipped with atypical arrowslits in the shape of crosses, with arms moved vertically, so that one side was higher than the other. This setting helped to improve the defender’s field of view.
At the inner ward, to the east of the gate, there was a hall building, next in the eastern part a building with a heated by fireplace chamber (solar), and a chapel connected with one of the towers. Chancel was located in the tower and was illuminated by three loop holes. Next to one of them in the wall there was a piscina for washing church vessels. An chancel arch was created from the portal leading to the tower, and the nave was a half-timbered building at the courtyard. The interior of the presbytery was plastered and covered with red paint forming quadrangles on a white background, quite a common motif found, among others, in Tintern Abbey and Chepstow Castle. The keep in this period probably did not function anymore (the last known information about its repair comes from 1256). The building with a private chamber was originally longer, but in the late Middle Ages in its outer side (from the courtyard side) another room with a fireplace was inserted. The small building in the corner contained a stone latrine pit, the size of which indicates that it was probably intended for the garrison. The western side of the inner ward was occupied by the late medieval economic buildings: malt house, bakehouse and kitchen.
In the southern part of the defensive perimeter, next to the remains of the keep, a postern was situated. It led to a small bridge over the moat and further to the earthen ramparts defending the castle from the south (hornwork), likely a remnant of the original 12th-century outer bailey. Initially, these ramparts were fortified with a wooden palisade, later replaced by a stone wall with a cylindrical tower in the western corner and a gatehouse in the eastern corner. The outer defense was provided by a deep moat, reinforced with stonework and filled with water. Its level was controlled by two dams: one in the southeast and one in the northwest.
On the north and north-west sides of the castle there was an outer bailey, which stone walls were erected in the mid-thirteenth century. It had dimensions of about 98 by 52 meters and was reinforced with four towers, three of which were semi-circular, about 6 meters in diameter, two-story, and one four-sided 8.4 meters wide. The latter probably housed living quarters, because it had a fireplace and a latrine. All were crowned with battlements, strongly protruded in front of the face of the wall towards the ditch and connected to the wall-walk of defenders in the crown of the walls. Cylindrical towers in the ground floor had an unlit room, and the upper floor was based on a wooden ceiling and equipped with arrowslits. From the side of the courtyard, all the towers were closed with wooden or half-timbered walls.
The outer gate was placed in the eastern part of bailey, next to the moat of the upper ward. It consisted of two small and elongated flanking towers, protruding from the four-sided gatehouse. It had a portcullis and a drawbridge over a probably waterless moat. The gate passage itself, 13 meters long, flanked by walls 2.5 meters thick, was closed at both ends by a doors. The ground floor also housed a guard’s chamber with a fireplace placed on one of the walls, separated from the gate’s passage by a wooden partition wall. On the opposite side, a few steps led to the latrine located in the wall protruding towards the moat.
Across the outer bailey courtyard, on its northwestern edge, alongside a group of smaller wooden buildings, a large building measuring 35 by 20 meters was erected, likely serving as a barn, cowshed, granary, or stable. The eastern part of the outer bailey courtyard remained undeveloped, presumably to be used as a pasture for horses or to provide temporary campsites for travelers. A latrine operated in a niche created in the westernmost part of the wall, right next to the moat. Another latrine was also located in the western tower, distinguishing the outer bailey from the lack of latrines in the upper ward (possibly it were entirely wooden, more vulnerable to destruction).
Current state
The castle has been preserved in the form of a legible ruin with almost full circumference of the upper castle’s walls (inner ward) and most of the fortifications of the outer bailey. Unfortunately, none of the residential or economic buildings survived, only the foundations are visible. The castle is currently managed by the agency of the Welsh cultural heritage (Cadw). It is open to visitors free of charge for most of the year.
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