“A statelie seate, a loftie princelie place, Whose beautie gives the simple soyle some grace.”
From the architecture of this castle I should suppose its antiquity to be at least coeval with the first settlement of the Normans in Gwent, if not even more remote. Its history is common with that of Screnfrith and Grosmont; but over both these it holds a decided superiority in extent, and massiveness of construction.
On approaching ABERGAVENNY, the tourist’s attention is involuntarily arrested by the singular beauty and variety of interest which the spot embraces, particularly in its encircling hills. The road skirting the Little Skyridd, a well-formed hill richly laid out in wood and pasture, opens to a fine display of the vale of Usk beneath; on the opposite side of which the continuous ridge of the wild Pontypool hills, which form the western boundary of the county, terminate in the heathy high-swelling Blorenge: a tract of wood sweeps along its base, and mixes with the sylvan knoll of Lanfoist, decorating its northern extremity. Further to the right, the elegant smooth cone of the Sugar-loaf, the highest of the Monmouthshire mountains, presents itself, issuing from among the four tributary eminences of the Pen-y-vale hills. Eastward of this mountain is the Great Skyridd, an object of considerable interest; its bipartite and truly Alpine summit, without being a forced opposition, strikingly contrasts the general undulating line of the neighbouring hills, and rears a distinct and noble character on the scene. The views from this mountain are scarcely inferior to those from the Sugar-loaf; while its craggy form, its asperitous summit, jagged into an immense fissure, and shelving to a ridge apex of fearful narrowness, impress a mixed emotion of awe and admiration on the adventurous climber of the height, that more than compensates for a small inferiority of altitude. There was formerly, at the top of this mountain, a Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to St. Michael, of which no vestiges remain; but a remembrance of the site is preserved in a hollow place formed by the superstitious, who, resorting here on Michaelmas eve, carry away the earth to strew over the sepulchres of their friends. According to the barometrical measurement of General Roy, the height of the Sugar-loaf mountain is 1852 feet perpendicular above the Gavenny rivulet, near its junction with the Usk. The Blorenge is 1720, and the Great Skyridd 1498 feet from the same level.
