This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Jeptha Homer Wade Travel Journals: Germany July 18 to October 16, 1914

Raglan Castle, Wales

Raglan Castle is a late medieval castle located just north of the village of Raglan in the county of Monmouthshire in south east Wales. The modern castle dates from between the 15th and early 17th-centuries, when the successive ruling families of the Herberts and the Somersets created a luxurious, fortified castle, complete with a large hexagonal keep, known as the Great Tower or the Yellow Tower of Gwent. Surrounded by parkland, water gardens and terraces, the castle was considered by contemporaries to be the equal of any other in England or Wales. During the English Civil War the castle was held on behalf of Charles I and was taken by Parliamentary forces in 1646. In the aftermath, the castle was slighted, or deliberately put beyond military use; after the restoration of Charles II, the Somersets declined to restore the castle. Raglan Castle became first a source of local building materials, then a romantic ruin, and is now a modern tourist attraction.

This page is referenced by:

Page 65: September 23-24, 1914 but good dinner at Lion Hotel
Nothing in town. Another flat
tire this P.M. Run 70 miles
Sept 24 Another fine day +
most beautiful scenery. Followed
the Wye to near 3 Cocks
Inn then branched off to
Abergethenny [sic] where we had a
good hot lunch at the
Angel hotel. Then on to
Raglan where we visited
the extensive + prestigious
ruins of the old castle one
of the finest ruins in Wales
Then to Monmouth where we
had our usual afternoon
flat tire + down the Wye
valley to Tintern Abbey
Visited ruins new being
extensively repaired + on to
Chepstow. Valley beautiful
but not more so than its
upper stretches near
Rhyader. At Chepstow
stayed at Beaufort Arms
a very old unpretentious
house but well run