Abergavenny Castle

Abergavenny Castle is a demolished manor in the market town of Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, set up by the Norman master Hamelin de Balun in around 1087. It was the site of a slaughter of Welsh aristocrats in 1175, and was assaulted amid the mid 15^th century Glynder Rising. William Camden, the 16^th century savant, said that the manor "has been oftner stain'd with the disgrace of foul play, than some other palace in Wales". It has been a Grade I recorded working since 1952. Hamelin de Balun, a Norman master, had the palace worked around 1087. Secured by a dump and palisade, the motte was surmounted by a wooden keep.

Soon after 1100, a stone keep was worked to supplant the wooden structure, and a wooden corridor was based on its western side. In the 1160s, Henry Fitzmiles, the child of Miles de Gloucester, first Earl of Hereford and master of Abergavenny, was slaughtered, supposedly by Seisyll ap Dyfnwal of Castell Arnallt. Without a male beneficiary, Henry Fitzmiles' home and the lordship, which included terrains in upper Gwent and Brecknockshire, and additionally the Castle, go to his girl Bertha's better half, William de Braose. De Braose reconstructed parts of the stronghold and developed the shade divider, parts of which still remain.