The garrison surrendered and Kemeys was summarily executed. After the restoration of the monarchy in , Chepstow Castle was retained in Royal ownership. Artillery was installed and the castle also served as a prison for political dissidents. Most prominent amongst these was the Republican politician and regicide Henry Marten who was held at Chepstow after periods of imprisonment at Lindisfarne Castle , the Tower of London and Windsor Castle.
Accordingly Chepstow was neglected and by the late seventeenth century it was little more than a depot for discarded and out-dated weaponry. It drifted into ruin and was never rebuilt. More recently the castle was used as the location for the film version of Ivanhoe. M Crouch, D Davies, R. R Lordship and Society in the March of Wales Conquest, Coexistence and Change: Wales Douglas, D.
C and Greeaway, G. W ed English Historical Documents Vol 2 Routledge, London. C and Rothwell, H ed English Historical Documents Vol 3 C and Myers, A. R ed English Historical Documents Vol 4 Kenyon, J The Medieval Castles of Wales. University of Wales Press, Cardiff. Morgan, G Castles in Wales: A Handbook. Morris, M Pettifer, A Welsh Castles, A Guide by Counties.
Boydell Press. Phillips, A Castles and Fortifications of Wales. Amberley, Stroud. Salter, M The Castles of Gwent, Glamorgan and Gower. Folly Publications, Malvern.
Thorpe, L Wood, J. G Chepstow Castle is a large, ruined castle with remains dating from multiple periods. Substantial remains also exist of the town wall which originally stretched from the castle to the waterfront. Chepstow Castle Layout. Beta Accessibility. Site Record. Site Advanced Search. You have no advanced search rows. Chepstow Castle Loading Map.
NPRN Description Chepstow Castle occupies a spectacular defensive position on vertical cliffs above the River Wye. It has its origin in the early Norman period when William fitzOsbern, Earl of Hereford from , had juristiction over the area, and is the most southerly of a chain of fortifications along the Welsh March. The great tower may have been commissioned by William I during his visit to South Wales in However, he preferred his estates in East Anglia and nothing indicates that he would carry out any construction works in Chepstow.
Only when the goods passed into the hands of his nephew, the fifth Earl of Norfolk, also named Roger Bigod, significant investments were made in the castle. During this period, new buildings were erected at the lower ward, which served as the main residence of the Bigod family. At the end of the work, master Reginald was to construct four ballists and pay the carpenter to build a giant crane to mount them on top of the keep.
Roger Bigod the younger, died childless in , and the castle returned to the English Crown. From this period comes a number of documents certifying numerous repairs and supplying the castle with a garrison consisting of twelve knights and 60 footmen.
Chepstow remained a royal property until , when Edward II granted it to his unpopular favorite, Hugh Despenser. Edward II and Despenser retreated to the Chepstow castle, but did not risk a siege and escaped. Both were finally captured, Despenser was executed and the king overthrown and imprisoned. From the fourteenth century, and especially after the end of the wars between England and Wales at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the military significance of the castle was reduced.
During the War of the Roses, the castle served only as a refuge for Richard Woodville, Erl Rivers and his son after the defeat at the Battle of Edgecote. For the rest of the 15th century , Chepstow was part of the estate granted to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and in it became the property of Sir Charles Somerset, the later Earl of Worcester who rebuilt the castle in Tudor-style, into a more comfortable residence. In the 17th century, during the English Civil War, the castle was occupied by royalist troops.
They dominated in Wales at the beginning of the conflict, but in parliamentary forces under the command of Thomas Morgan besieged Chepstow. After the castle was fired, the garrison gave up. The stronghold escaped slighting, but in it was again occupied by royalists of Nicholas Kemeys. The forces of Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell again shelled the stronghold causing significant damages.
The garrison gave up and Kemeys was executed. After the war, the castle was garrisoned and was maintained as a barracks and political prison.
The prisoner in Chepstow was, among others, Henry Marten, one of the commissioners who signed the death sentence on king Charles I, held until his own death in In , the castle became the property of duke Beaufort, the garrison was withdrawn three years later and the buildings were partially demolished, rented to tenants or left to their fate.
The first repair work was undertaken at the beginning of the 20th century. Chepstow Castle was founded on a narrow and longitudinal ridge between the limestone cliff above the River Wye from the north and the Dell Valley from the land side, from the south. The bend of the Wye that ran a few kilometers down into the estuary of the River Severn flanked the area to the east. The first buildings were erected at the highest point of the area between two ditches, probably created by widening natural rock crevices.
A well-protected area measuring 85 x 20 meters was thus fenced off. The oldest part of the castle was the so-called Great Tower, that is an elongated, rectangular, stone building of the donjon function, which dimensions were 36 x 14 meters, and the height was originally about 10 meters on the west side, where the terrain was higher. Due to the drop of the area, its eastern part was set on a massive pedestal, and the outer elevations were reinforced with pilaster butresses.
The more endangered southern wall was more massive, it was about 2. In the first phase of the 11th and 12th centuries it was a two-floor building, with the lower storey accessible through the northern portal, and the upper level through wooden stairs from the east, leading to the portal with a romanesque tympanum decorated with the distinctive carved saltire pattern and the type of lobby, from which the main ceremonial chamber was reached through the passage in the thickness of the wall and the staircase.
The second entrance to the first floor was probably in the north facade, where a timber staircase led directly. Illumination of the lower floor was provided only by three small openings, and the upper floor by seven semi-circular windows from the safer side facing the river.
The eastern facade also had small windows, while the southern and western walls were deprived of them for security reasons. Originally, each floor was filled with single, spacious chambers, separated by a wooden ceiling, which transverse joists rested on holes in the longitudinal walls and on a single, massive beam fixed in the nests of two shorter walls, supported from below by wooden poles.
The main, upper hall on the south and west sides had rows of arcades with semicircular finials in the walls, with the central southern arcade larger. Originally they were plastered and decorated with white and orange patterns. The lower storey originally served as a pantry and warehouse, and since the fourteenth century as the armory. The upper one was rather unusual — it did not have a fireplace for heating, latrines, a division into private, smaller rooms, or, except the northern portal, passages for servants.
For this reason, it is supposed that this was not a typical great hall, but rather a representative chamber intended for judicial function, with a place for the king in the central, largest niche on the south side. In the years , the upper floor of the keep was rebuilt, piercing five new, gothic windows three on the north side, one from the east and south , with benches in deep niches on the inner side facing the river, and private chambers on the west side were arranged.
Each window was divided into two openings with finials in a trefoils below the quatrefoil tracery. Only the upper part of the windows was glazed, the lower was equipped with holes for fixing wooden shutters.
The western part of the keep was also raised by another floor, supported on a single pillar with beautifully decorated arches falling on consoles with leafy forms. An additional storey with a private chamber was illuminated from the north by two ogival windows and connected by means of timber, external stairs. In the former large central niche on the main floor, a fireplace was arranged, thanks to which the keep could perform more typical residential and representative functions as the seat of a lord.
In the years Roger Bigod raised the remaining, eastern part of the keep, placing small turrets in its eastern corners, and covered the whole with a lead roof. The keep reached a height of 23 meters. From the side of the river Roger erected gallery, that is a covered porch running along the keep, constituting the connection between the middle and upper wards.
Inside, it had a series of semicircular niches in the wall facing the river and an upper defensive walkway secured with battlement. Both ends: east and west, were closed with gates. Probably they were then replaced by internal staircases.
Below the porch, at the foot of the cliffs in the coastal mud, a cylindrical water tank was built to flow into it from a natural spring from the riverside rocks.
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