Qualla: Monmouth Castle

Monmouth Castle: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Croft, CC BY-SA 2.0. Somewhere inside the Queen's Chamber above the gatehouse, in 1386, a young noblewoman named Mary de Bohun gave birth to a son while her husband was off hunting in the local forest. The husband would soon be king as Henry IV. The son, known then as Henry of Monmouth, would grow up to be Henry V, victor of Agincourt and the king Shakespeare made immortal. Today the Queen's Chamber is gone. So is most of the castle around it. What survives, perched above the confluence of the River Monnow and the River Wye, is the ragged Great Tower, fragments of the Hall, a few wall stubs, and an extraordinary later mansion called Great Castle House that sits squarely on top of the medieval ruin. Together they form one of the few British castles in continuous military occupation, still serving today as the headquarters of the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers, the oldest regiment in the Army Reserve.

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Image: Richard Croft | CC BY-SA 2.0

Monmouth Castle: Border Stone

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. When William the Conqueror took England in 1066, he installed three of his most trusted lieutenants along the Welsh frontier: Hugh d'Avranches at Chester, Roger de Montgomery at Shrewsbury, and William FitzOsbern at Hereford. FitzOsbern's brief was to push west, and he built cast...

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Monmouth Castle: A Royal House

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eirian Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1267 the castle passed to Edmund Crouchback, son of Henry III and the first Earl of Lancaster, and the Lancastrian dynasty made it their own. Edmund built the Hall and chose Monmouth as his main residence in the region. His grandson, Henry of Grosmont, first Duke of Lancaster,...

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Image: Eirian Evans | CC BY-SA 2.0

Monmouth Castle: Demolition by Resolution

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ethan Doyle White, CC BY-SA 4.0. The English Civil War broke the castle. Monmouth changed hands three times between Royalists and Parliamentarians; in 1645 it fell finally to Parliament. Oliver Cromwell visited the town in 1646, and tradition holds that he ordered the demolition. On 1 March 1647 the House of Com...

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Image: Ethan Doyle White | CC BY-SA 4.0

Monmouth Castle: The Regiment That Stayed

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ethan Doyle White, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1875 the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers Militia, descended from a sixteenth-century county force first recorded in 1539, made the Great Castle House their headquarters. They have not left since. Today they are the senior regiment of the Army Reserve, the oldest in the Bri...

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Image: Ethan Doyle White | CC BY-SA 4.0