White Castle, Llanthony Crosseny, Nr Abergavenny

After sorting the wife's salad box, I left the house at 8am, leaving her still in the land of nod. I headed on my own to Skenfrith, near Monmouthsire, to look around the area and visit the three castles there. Skenfrith and Grosmont castles are free to look around, but White Castle has a charge of £3. They're all under the care of Cadw.

I took about three dozen photo's and have chosen the one of White Castle as my blip as it's a bit different.

I got home about 4pm to find the wife had been tidying up before she went to work. It's seems all my stuff is put away. I did notice the back guest bedroom has her shoes, dresses and women's stuff just strewn about! Well, I've had a tidy up too. Fair is fair!

Our grass in the front and back garden, or what passes for it, is clumpy and the daisies running wild. I walk over thousands of farm fields every year and every one has better grass than ours. I don't know how they do it, but I'm sure if they put their cows or sheep on our patch, they'd go on strike. Anyway, I cut it, but that artificial grass that is all the rage is very tempting!

For those interested, White Castle is the best preserved of the Three Castles, namely, White, Skenfrith and Grosmont. The heart of this castle is surrounded by powerful round towers.

The Three Castles are usually grouped together because for a large part of their history they were part of a block of territory under the control of a single lord, Hubert de Burgh.

Hubert had gleaned a great deal about military architecture from his time fighting in France. He rebuilt Skenfrith and Grosmont in stone, adding domestic apartments to both castles, so that they could be used as lordly residences. However, this doesn’t seem to have been the case with White. Rather than a nobleman’s residence, it seems to have been built for military work. A workhorse of a castle, you might say. The internal buildings did, however, include a chapel, hall and kitchen, but were more befitting a garrison commander than a great lord.

After Hubert de Burgh, the Three Castles were held in royal hands, and in 1254 Henry III granted them to his eldest son, the future Edward I. The rest is, as they say, history