DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION OF A MEDIEVAL WELSH CASTLE

In December 2017, instead of the expected speaker Brian Davies, who was, unfortunately, unwell, Cowbridge U3A History Group welcomed Chris Jones-Jenkins, a freelance reconstruction artist, who has carried out commissions for English Heritage, among others. His illustrated talk was on the castle that Edward I had built at Holt in Denbighshire in the 13th century.

Known as ‘Castrum Leonis’ (Lion’s Castle) because it had a lion motif carved into the stonework above its main gate, the fortification was besieged by Owain Glyndŵr in 1400 and, despite being in a decayed state, was defended during the English Civil War. The castle was partially demolished by Parliamentary forces in 1647 and nearly 30 years later much of the stone was taken to build Sir Thomas Grosvenor’s Eaton Hall near Chester. The sandstone base that the castle stood on was then extensively quarried, until all that remains of the fortress are a few masonry features, like the postern gate and a buttress of a tower, sitting on a pinnacle of rock. All the outer walls have gone; the surviving parts of the castle are remnants of the inner structure. Not very promising material on which to base a reconstruction, it would seem.

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There are, however, documents and maps available to the historian, including contemporary sources for building works at the castle during the last two years of Richard II’s reign, when a treasury was constructed, as well as several plans and elevation drawings. A map of 1562 shows a pentagonal structure, with round towers at the corners, while a circa 1600 diagram indicated there was one square tower and four round ones. There was no symmetry, as the towers ranged from 3 to 5 storeys high.

Archaeological excavations have subsequently shown that all the towers were round, with one having had Richard II’s treasury built onto it. Unfortunately, the town council of Holt chose to make the erroneous 1600 elevation, depicting one square tower, the basis for the town’s badge.

The castle was acquired by Sir William Stanley in 1484. Despite his rôle at the 1485 Battle of Bosworth, which brought Henry VII to the throne, Sir William was implicated in the Perkin Warbeck affair and executed in 1495, after which Holt Castle reverted to the Crown. Inventories of the castle and its contents were made at this time and included details of the furnishings, down even, for example, to the colour of the cushions and wall hangings in the chapel.

The discovery of an early 17th century plan of the castle in the National Library of Wales also assisted in the computer-generated modelling of the castle, which was based on all the antiquarian maps and drawings, the surviving masonry and archaeological evidence for the bases of three towers and the line of the channel leading to the water gate.

For the internal layout of the castle, the list of the rooms detailed in the 1495 inventory was used. Those named as chambers were given fireplaces and, by association, also chimneys. However, it became clear that not all the rooms were listed – those without contents and the latrines were excluded. A schematic room layout was used to deduce where the missing rooms and all the interconnecting doors were likely to be.

None of the views of the castle were architecturally detailed, and none showed all of the exterior or much of the inner courtyard. This information had to be derived from other Edwardian castles in north Wales built at the same time as Holt, such as Rhuddlan, Denbigh, Flint and Conwy.

Using all the available evidence, Holt Castle was painstakingly digitally reconstructed by Mr Jones-Jenkins, both internally and externally, revealing what the castle looked like and how it functioned at its high point in the late 15th century.

Finally, an animator was commissioned to produce a virtual tour of the rooms in the castle, based on the 3D reconstruction of the lost stronghold.

The meeting finished with the traditional History Group’s Christmas buffet.

Steve Monaghan