At the foot of the Black Mountains, in Powys, Tretower offers a rare face-to-face: on one side, an old round tower of a medieval castle; on the other, a few steps away, an open-courtyard manor, comfortable and peaceful. Two ages of Wales look at each other — that of war and that of the house.
The tower and the court
The site comprises two distinct ensembles. The older is Tretower Castle, of which a great round tower of the thirteenth century survives, a defensive work typical of the Welsh Marches, those border lands long disputed between the Welsh and Norman lords. Nearby, the Vaughan family built, at the end of the Middle Ages and the start of the Renaissance, an open-courtyard manor (Tretower Court): a timber-roofed great hall, a wooden gallery on the upper floor, comfortable lodgings. The passage from one to the other tells, in a few metres, the evolution of noble life: from the tower where one defends oneself to the manor where one receives.
A house of the Welsh gentry
Tretower Court is one of the best-preserved manors of the Welsh gentry of the late Middle Ages and the sixteenth century. Its great hall, its inner court bordered by wooden galleries, its apartments give a living image of the everyday life of a noble family of rural Wales, far from the great castles of display. The Vaughans were a cultivated family: later, in the seventeenth century, it gave the Welsh metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan. Tretower thus embodies deep Wales, that of the valleys and the minor nobility, which, under the Tudors, passed gradually from entrenched life to polished life.
What to see
- The round tower of the medieval castle (Tretower Castle).
- The open-courtyard manor (Tretower Court) and its timber-roofed great hall.
- The wooden gallery of the inner court.
- The setting of the Black Mountains, in the Welsh Marches.
Did you know?
Tretower shows, in a single place, what played out across all of Wales in the Renaissance: the towers of defence, inherited from centuries of border war, were gradually abandoned for open, comfortable manors. The Vaughan family left their old round tower literally standing beside their new house — so that the visitor can pass, in a few steps, from the world of fear to the world of peace, like Wales itself under the Tudors.
Practical information
Tretower Court lies near Crickhowell, in Powys, in the south-east of Wales. It is today a site in the care of Cadw (the Welsh heritage service), comprising the castle and the manor, open to the public. Opening hours and days are liable to change with the seasons; it is best to check them against the official sources before visiting.
Quiz
- What does Tretower show, side by side, in a single place?
- A medieval castle tower and an open manor
- Two cathedrals
- A theatre and an arena
- Which family built the manor of Tretower Court?
- The Vaughans
- The Somersets
- The Tudors
- What does the passage from tower to manor tell?
- The evolution of noble life, from war to the house
- The founding of an abbey
- The arrival of the Romans