Pen y Clawdd Castle is a ditched mound with a double moat, roughly circular in shape, with a diameter of approximately 28m to 30m and about 2.4m high.[1] The castle is in Llanvihangel Crucorney, about five miles to the north of Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, in south east Wales and lies between the Usk and Monnow rivers.[2] The mound was designated a scheduled monument in 1950 and described as a defensive medieval motte.[3]
The castle mound is adjacent to Pen-y-Clawdd Court (a Grade I listed building),[4] a stable and cowshed with adjoining range, and a barn, all of which are Grade II listed buildings.[5][6] These buildings, along with the castle mound, are set in a roughly rectangular area about 150m by 135m.[1] This area is a possible location for the bailey part of the castle.[7] Some of the features of the mound may have been changed by landscaping around the later buildings.[1]
Very little is known of the exact origins of the castle, but it may have been built by Roger de Hastings during the 11th century, as one of a number of forts created after the Revolt of the Earls in 1075.[2] However, no contemporary evidence of occupation of the site exists up to 1349 when, for half a knight's fee, Walter de Kymbard held the site from Laurence de Hastings, 1st Earl of Pembroke, who was also Baron [A]Bergavenny.[8]
The adjacent Pen-y-Clawdd Court was probably built early in the 16th century and extended and remodelled early in the 17th century.[4] The farm buildings were added later; cowshed (early 18th century), barn (mid 18th century), and stable and range (early 19th century).[5][6]
The site was surveyed (topographic and geophysical), along with a number of other earthwork sites, between December 1999 and February 2001.[9] Excavations were carried out in 2002 and 2003.[10] The surveys and excavations suggested that there was a large rectangular masonry structure on the mound which suffered fire damage and partly collapsed. The stones may have been used when Pen-y-Clawdd Court was built.[11]
Phillips suggests that the site is a fortified house from a later period,[12] but may have been preceded by a motte and bailey.[11] Phillips notes that the position of the site below a hill is not a usual choice for a motte and bailey and find it "an awkward site to interpret" and "puzzling".[13] Salter classes the motte as a medieval fortified site rather than a castle.[14]