Holt Castle, Wales

Holt is a medieval market town in the county borough of Wrexham, Wales. It is situated on the border with England.

Area

The district has been occupied since at least the Roman period. A brickworks (possibly called Bovium) supplied clay tiles and pottery to the Roman fort of Deva Victrix, eight miles away (modern Chester). The works was located just downstream from the modern town. In the early 20th century, six kilns, a bath house, sheds and barracks were found there on the banks of the River Dee.

Three Bronze Age burial urns have also been found in Holt.

Holt Castle

Holt Castle was a medieval castle that was situated on the western bank of the River Dee by the town of Holt. In the medieval period it was actually known as Castrum Leonis or Castle Lyons because it had a Lion motif carved into the stonework above its main gate.

Construction

The castle, which was constructed between 1282 and 1311, was built from local sandstone on top of a 12 metres (39 ft) high promontory. It was shaped like a pentagon with towers at each corner.

The castle had a stepped ramp up to a main gateway, barbican, inner ward, postern and curtain walls. There was also a water-filled moat that was fed from the River Dee.

The design of the castle featured towers that were built against the face of the rock outside the curtain wall, similar to the inner wards at Ruthin and at Conwy.

History

Holt castle was started by Edward I on a sandstone base next to the River Dee soon after the invasion of North Wales in 1277. In 1282 Edward I presented the Welsh lands in which Holt was situated to loyal lord John de Warrene, who was also given the task of completing the castle. By 1311 the castle had been finished and a planned town laid out next to it for the use by English settlers.

A century later, Welsh forces burned down the town in 1400 during the uprising of Owain Glyndwr; although the castle was not taken.

By the 16th century Holt Castle had fallen disuse and ruin. The English Elizabethan map maker John Norden surveyed the castle and noted that it was "nowe in great decay".

In 1643, during the English Civil War Holt was garrisoned by Royalists troops. Three years later, after holding out for a year during a second siege, Holt became the last castle to be captured by Parliamentarian forces in north-east Wales.

Holt Castle was slighted in 1650 to stop it being used as a fortification by any royalist supporters.

Between 1675 and 1683 much of the castle was taken away by Sir Thomas Grosvenor, 3rd Baronet of Eaton, who used barges to carry the stonework downstream to rebuild Eaton hall after the English Civil War.

In the 18th century all that remained of Holt Castle was part of a tower and a rectangular building.

Present Day

Today the only sizeable part of Holt Castle that remains is the sandstone base. However a few masonry features are still visible, like the postern gate, a buttress and the foundations of a square tower

Town

There is a medieval market cross in the centre of Holt. The church of St Chad has parts dating to the 15th century and 17th century.

Medieval Bridge

A Grade I listed 14th-century sandstone bridge links Holt with the English village of Farndon across the River Dee. Records from the county court of Chester in 1368, state that:

the jury presented that John, earl of Warenne, late Lord of Bromfield, had constructed a bridge across the River Dee (during 1338)... and upon that bridge is a fortified gateway' The jury then claimed that illegal toll was being extorted from workmen daily crossing the bridge, and that the town of Holt was giving shelter to felons who ambushed Cheshire folk

A survey of 1627 described the bridge:

contayninge 10 arches which River divideth Two Sheires, namely Cheshire and Denbye... Upon the fifth Arch from Holt standeth a Tower or Gatehouse of Fortification... (the text then describes the Lady's Chapel in the tower)... Upon the other end of the fortificacion next unto the manor of Farndon next unto the Manor of Farndon is layd out in Masons Works a Lyon to the full passant. And like Lyon is upon the gates of Holt Castell. The county of Chester doth repair the bridge to the Lyon.

Sixteen years later, William Brereton, attacked the bridge for the Parliamentarians:

for which end they had also made a towre and drawbridge and strong gates upon the bridge soe as they and wee coceived it difficult if not altogether ympossible to make way for our passage'. Despite this he, Thomas Myddelton and their forces took the bridge on 9th November 1643 when they cast 'some grenados amongst the Welshmen.

Thomas Pennant recorded ten arches in 1754 (and had been told a date stone of 1354 was there until recently, which contradicts the more likely date of 1338) but Hubbard in Buildings of Wales only saw eight. The third arch, viewed from the Holt river bank, shows the strengthened arch where the drawbridge once stood.