Wiston Castle
Wiston
was named after, and probably built by, an early Flemish settler with the
improbable name of Wizo (in Latin) or Gwys (welsh), who joined the many foreign
colonists encouraged to settle on Welsh lands won by Henry II. Wizo was
dead by 1130, but the castle is first mentioned in documents in 1147 when it was
taken by the Welsh. It was again taken by the Welsh in 1193, when it fell,
apparently with the aid of treachery, to Hywel Sais, the son
of the Lord Rhys, but was recaptured in 1195. In 1220, however, it was captured
by Llywelyn the Great, prince of Gwynedd, during one of his campaigns in south
Wales. The local people were told to help William Marshall, earl of Pembroke, to
rebuild it. Whether or not this rebuilding took place is uncertain.
he
castle, situated on a high hill on the north side of the village of Wiston, is
among the best preserved motte
and bailey castles in Wales, and one of only six to have a shell keep - a defensive stone wall encircling the summit. The motte
stands some 9m above the bottom of the deep encircling ditch, and is 18m in
diameter at its summit. Upon the flat top of the mound is the shell-keep,
or encircling stone wall, which would have formed the main defence, and within
which would have stood other buildings, probably of timber. The shell-keep
is circular internally, but externally the wall face is polygonal with 18 sides.
Sections of the northern side of the wall have fallen toward the ditch. On the
south side, facing the bailey, is the arched entrance on either side of which
are deep draw-bar holes for securing the wooden gate. The large oval bailey is
surrounded by an unusually well-preserved bank which crosses the motte
ditch to the mound. The strongly protected bailey would have enclosed the main
residence and ancillary buildings of the lord.
There was an military postscript to the castles' history during the Civil War. In 1643
the Royalists established a small outpost at Wiston, perhaps at the old motte. They withdrew, apparently without offering any
resistance, when the Parliamentarians under Major-General Rowland Laugharne
renewed operations in the area in 1644. A famous route of the Royalists by a
force of Laugharne's men took place at Colby Moor, just to the south-east of Wiston.
Wiston castle appears to have been entirely ignored by the old sketchers of Pembrokeshire strongholds, and so far as is known no engraving of it has ever been made.
The outer mound and ditch of the old castle, lying on the west side of
the occupation road, surrounded a considerable area, at a guess some 3 acres of
level sward, at the north end of which stood a high artificial mound, crowned
with the ruins of what appeared to be a circular stone built keep. At the foot
of the mound was a moat, then
dry, in which some large trees were growing. From the top of the mound a fine
view was obtainable, and Mrs. Jones [The farm tenant in 1917] stated that on a clear day
it was possible to see Ireland from it.
Mrs. Jones stated that when Wiston church was being restored some 40 years previously, about three cart loads of human bones were discovered buried under the pews, and taken away.The bones were of great size, from which she opined that men must have been larger in earlier days than at present. It was supposed that the bones were the remains of those who had been slain 'in the battle with the Cromwellians, which took place at a spot a little south of the castle'. The field she stated was called 'Cromwell's Moor, and in the engagement cannon were fired from Wiston Castle.' A few of the iron cannon balls are still at Wiston, and were shown to the writer.
The battle was fought at Colby Moor, about a mile from Wiston Castle, on 1 August 1645, when the royalist, under the command of Major-Generals Stradling and Egerton, were defeated by the parliamentary forces under Major-General Rowland Laugharne. Cromwell was not present, and it would seem that the local tradition of the battle had been distorted before it reached Mrs. Jones. It is possible that cannon were fired from the mound of the keep of Wiston Castle, but there is little doubt that the keep itself had been in ruins long before.
Wiston Castle c2000