White Castle has long been on the "must see" list for David and I and so we were pleased that Mom was willing to join us on this venture, especially since it is now considered "winter" here and so the site itself is no longer manned by CADW personnel so we weren't sure what we would find when we got up there. We saw a rainbow along the way and decided to take it as an omen of good luck.
The castle was everything it was advertised to be. This large inner and outer ward castle still offers a lot to be seen despite it's age of being built near 1100. The castle originally got it's name because the entire castle was built utilizing a white plaster or white-wash or something akin to it to coat it's walls. The color has faded to grey but still provides an impressive site to behold.
A sign nearby White Castle told us that the same person built a total of 3 castles in the nearby area and so we decided to look up the other 2 while we were nearby. Thus, we headed on to Skenfrith. Skenfrith was a much smaller castle being just an outer wall and then an inner tower. The outer wall itself has been breached at some point as has the tower. One of the 4 towers at the corners of the walls is completely missing so it took damage or fell into considerable disrepair along it's history. Since this was a free access site, we're not sure which happened at this point.
Last but not least we headed into Grosmont for their castle. You could see the luxury this castle would have provided versus the other two. This was more substantial than Skenfrith but much less in size compared to White. Additionally, this castle as well as Skenfrith did not provide the towering view we are used to seeing from a Castle location.
The three castles, it is my understanding, were built to defend England from the Welsh and fell into disrepair within a couple hundred years of their founding. White Castle saw some upkeep as it was a good defensive position with good views of the surrounding countryside. Grosmont was maintained as a fortified manor house even into the 1400's which is why it's beauty can still be seen. The three made for a good showing of what was available for castles in that time.
Since we were on toward Herefordshire, we opted to head into The Fox Inn to have dinner. Most enjoyable dinner!! And then we headed home. Tomorrow's agenda has us sticking closer to home.
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