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Penrice, Gower Peninsula, south Wales
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Photographs copyright © by Bill Damick and Ben Jones
Michael Salter, 1991.
A later Robert de Penres, who married into the powerful de Camville family, incurred the wrath of Edward III in 1362 when his Welsh castles were reported to be ruinous. His estates were forfeited in 1377 when he was convicted of the murder of a woman at Llansteffan in 1370. His son bought back the estates in 1391 but left no heirs and in the early 15th century Penrice passed to the Mansels of Oxwich. Sir Rhys Mansel let the castle to William Benet, whose heirs resided there until 1669. Possibly the defences were dismantled in the Civil War. The castle continued in use as a tenanted farm held from a branch of the Mansels during the 18th century, although the Buck brothers engraving shows it as a total ruin. Penrice is the largest castle on the Gower and has a number of unusual features. The keep, gatehouse and much of the surrounding walls stand high but in a ruinous and ivy-clad state. The keep has a diameter of 9.7m over walls 2.1m thick. It contained a single room with three windows and a latrine but no fireplace over an unlit basement. It was later raised without any extra living space being provided and a unique single storey chemise with a flat roof and parapet added towards the court. The hall lay on the upper storey of an adjacent range added outside the original curtain. Only the ivy-covered inner wall survives, with fragments of a late medieval porch towards the court. The layout of all the rooms is unclear. The gatehouse has a square block within the curtain wall and a pair of three storey square towers with rounded outer corners projecting from the curtain. The curtain wall varies somewhat in thickness and is much rebuilt on the east side where there is a later medieval dovecot. Penrice Castle is on private land, but a public footpath allows viewing of portions of the curtain and towers. |
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Additional photographs of Penrice by Ben Jones
Below: three rare interior photos of the castle
Visit the Penrice Castle Estate home page
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Copyright © 2009 by Jeffrey L. Thomas