Weobley Castle, Wales

This time we visit a fortified manor house based on the Gower peninsula in the South of Wales. It’s quite fascinating that you can stand in the very same window as someone important would have half a millennium ago and witness the same unspoilt and gorgeous views over the marshlands and mudflats.

This was the home of the De La Bere family right up until the 15^th century, the De La Bere’s were stewards to the lords of Gower and were elegant and a refined family by all accounts, as you see when you wander the amount of domestic niceties that the family had built into their grand manor house, which included fine fireplaces, private rooms and decorative halls and a sizeable guest chamber.

It was one of the more desirable places to live and a number of high society VIP’s also lived here, including Rhys ap Thomas who was the ally of Henry VII and the Mansell’s who owned nearby Oxwich Castle. They also had a watchtower, in a military style, with the wall tops and the southern west tower moved to battlement height showing us that in a conflict they would have still had the right fortifications ready. It’s here that luxury and defence went truly hand to hand.

The earliest dates to the building is of 1304 for its main construction, the first building was in the hall block, which suggested that the point of the castle was primarily intended for a home rather than a fortress and the two south towers also date back to around that time. The rather open site was enclosed in the second phase of its building with an addition of a chapel, a solar and the west gateway. Most of this work was done by the David De La Bere who was the lord of Gower in the 1300’s but unfortunately the castle was badly damaged by Owain Glyndwr’s rebellion in the early 15^th century.

Glyndwr’s forces attacked the castle several times and some historians speculate that the castles owner John was killed during one of these attacks, with the amount of damage done to the castle, rather than repair it, the de la bare family chose to abandon it. Then following later the next construction didn’t take place till the late 15^th century when Sir Rhys Thomas was given the land of Weobley from Henry VII, he then added a two storey porch block to provide an imposing entrance which is really cool when you first walk in.

As well as more private quarters and storage rooms and all of them had distinctive Tudor characteristics, including typical flat headed Tudor windows or elegant stonework which when you look around the whole castle you can see all of these.

Being passed through a series of owners for nearly 400 years, the castle was leased to Sir William Herbert for ten years before being brought by the Mansell family and finally in the 17^th century the castle was sold to the Talbot family who owned the castle for over 200 years but didn’t actually live, work or carry out any restoration work and now given to state care and cared for by CADW who have kept this place open and alive for us to experience it’s beautiful history.

Some of the rooms we have been inside include the cellars of the castle, the cellars would contain all the various needs for the home, some cellars would be stocked full with food and items for many months. Other rooms are the private apartments of the lord what’s known as a solar, quite distinctive in the fact that it would usually have a fireplace and often comfortable window seats, sometimes large enough to serve as a private bedroom-cum-sitting room.

We move on into the exhibit of the castle, put on by cadw showcasing various information covering the gower and the neuigbouring castles that all have a connection. It’s great that they’ve managed to put all this interesting information into one of the rooms here, making good use of the now empty rooms that would have once been lived in.

Coming out of the exhibit rooms one of my favourite views here was outside the what was kitchen windows, the views over the marshlands are just so very beautiful, especially on a day like today with blue skies, but can you imagine how the lords and ladies would have been able to enjoy a view with their daily life and of course it would have been a great lookout point for any unwanted visitors from afar. The ground floor here is where the kitchen and various service rooms would have been, you can tell this from the extensive amounts of windows, fireplaces and garderobes, as we peer out the window we overlook what was once the old lime kilns too.

Our next room that we enter is the courtyard before climbing the short steps to what was once the hall, like many medieval halls, this was the heart of the castle, the place where the De La Bere’s would have joyfully eaten their meals and wined and dined various important friends. This hall would have been covered in beautiful paintings, possibly family coat of arms and other important decorations to really show off their wealth and status. Unfortunately on this level there is a door that leads up the towers, but sadly they are closed off, possibly for more restoration works, but this would have originally led up to the battlements.

We loved the overview of the main house, it looks quite small, I guess this castle itself does look quite small but it’s not to be dismissed, it was small but mighty and clearly could defend itself in attacks, but it also had the visual impression of being a home, a home to a number of families who would have been very happy here. Inside this small room was the buildings chapel, perfect for some quiet time and time for reflection.

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Till Next Time!