Tuesday 29th June 1819
myself. We arrived at Monmouth about 7 o’Clock where we found dinner ready and not unacceptable….. Tuesday June 29th At about 12 o’Clock our merry party started for Ragland Castle nine miles from Monmouth; the castle is very large and is (Tintern Abbey excepted) the finest ruin I
have yet seen: we ascended all the staircases of the turrets which are quite perfect it is famed for its gallant defence in favour of Charles the 1st having taken a little refreshment at the Ragland Inn the disagreeable ceremony of parting arrived and we bade farewell
of our kind friends after passing three most happy days with them; they returned to Blenderry and we proceeded to Abergavenny a very dirty town but beautifully situated the Inn is good, in the evening we walked to the ruins of the Castle, a new one is being built
OBSERVATIONS & COMMENTS:
Raglan Castle: Passing through the female line to the Somerset’s, the family developed the castle in the coming centuries. Henry Somerset, then the 5th Earl of Worcester, enriched the castle and his son Edward, Lord Herbert became famous for building a "water commanding machine" in the Great Tower, which used steam to pump a huge spout of water high into the air from the moat. In the Civil war local protestants were reportedly driven away by the sudden noise of Lord Herbert's steam-engine. After losing the castle to the Parliamentarians, Henry was imprisoned at Windsor Castle. On learning Parliament had granted his request to be buried in the family vault at Windsor, the Marquess remarked; "Why then I shall have a better castle when I am dead, than they took from me when alive.
1797 Aquatint of Raglan Castle by Samuel Ireland from the Collection of Casgliad Tirlun Cymru (Welsh Landscape Collection) (WlAbNL)003381775 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raglan_Castle_(3375041).jpg
2008. The front of Raglan Castle, showing the main gatehouse , by Bob McCaffrey of Rickmansworth. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raglan_Castle%27s_main_entrance.jpg
In 1756 the castle became a tourist attraction, part of the popular Wye Tour. Seats, fences and bridges were installed, and the first guidebook to the site was published in the early 19th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raglan_Castle
2011 Panoramic photo of Raglan Castle by Hchc2009. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raglan_Castle#/media/File:Raglan_Castle_Panorama.jpg
The Raglan Inn, now “The Beaufort Inn” has always had strong links with nearby Raglan Castle. There has been a building on the site in view of the castle well before the Siege of Raglan Castle in 1646 when Roundhead soldiers used the inn to refresh themselves during the length of the siege. During the 19th century the inn was a popular mail-coach stop on the South Wales - Fishguard route. The Coach House building of today being where the farriers then worked.. https://www.beaufortraglan.co.uk/about/
Abergavenny is situated at the confluence of the River Usk and a tributary stream, the Gavenny. It is almost entirely surrounded by mountains and hills: the Blorenge (1,834 ft), the Sugar Loaf,(1,955 ft), Ysgyryd Fawr (Great Skirrid), Ysgyryd Fach (Little Skirrid), Deri, Rholben and Mynydd Llanwenarth, known locally as "Llanwenarth Breast".
Panoramic view Abergavenny taken from the canal that runs along the south of the town in 2014. Copyright Cornishstrongbitter at English Wikipedia, published it under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation
Abergavenny provides access to the nearby Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons National Park. The Offa's Dyke Path is close by and the Marches Way, the Beacons Way and Usk Valley Walk all pass through the town, which contains the remains of a medieval stone castle built soon after the Norman conquest of Wales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abergavenny
Abergavenny Castle is located strategically just south of the town centre overlooking the River Usk. It was built in about 1067 by the Norman baron Hamelin de Ballon to guard against incursions by the Welsh from the hills to the north and west. It was the site of a massacre of Welsh noblemen in 1175, and was attacked during the early 15th century Glyndŵr Rising. William Camden, the 16th century antiquary, said that the castle "has been oftner stain'd with the infamy of treachery, than any other castle in Wales.
No lord took up residence at the castle after the 15th century. During the English Civil War, as the Roundheads neared the castle, Charles I ordered a slighting of the castle to prevent its useful occupation. Most of the castle buildings, including the stone keep, were destroyed. Raglan Castle was similarly damaged. Stone from the site was taken thereafter, to be used for other buildings All that remains is defensive ditches and the ruins of the stone keep, towers, and part of the curtain wall.
1807 Aquatint Print of Abergavenny castle with an angler standing in the water in the foreground drawn & engraved by J. Hassell in the collection of Casgliad Tirlun Cymru (Welsh Landscape Collection-WlAbNL-003381775) sourced at http://www.llgc.org.uk/en/ and managed by the National Library of Wales. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or less.
By the late 18th century, the ruins were starting to attract visitors seeking "picturesque" views, and walks were laid out within the castle walls.
In 1819, Henry Nevill, 2nd Earl of Abergavenny, had a hunting lodge constructed on top of the motte to attract even more tourists. Referring to this, Lucy writes that “a new one is being built”. We will discover on the next page what she thought about this “new castle”
2019 Ruins of Abergavenny Castle by Ethan Doyle White, the copyright holder of this work, and published and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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2008 Abergavenny Castle: Part of the surviving curtain wall looking northwest, the Sugar Loaf in the background, from geograph.org.uk. The image is owned and licensed by Jeremy Bolwell for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
The Kings Arms Hotel is a late sixteenth century coaching inn located in the heart of Abergavenny. She does not mention the name of the inn but it may well be where the family stayed. Lucy commented that “the Inn is good”. http://www.kingsarmsabergavenny.co.uk/
Can you help us?
Old Regency Prints or Pictures and maps of the Old Coaching Routes: Any illustrations of what Lucy would have seen in 1819 will bring our research alive. Any modern pictures of the streets, buildings, gardens and sites will enable us to see the changes that two centuries have wrought.