Builth Castle

Builth Wells is in Powys in mid-Wales.
The castle is in the town, on the south-east side and there is open access to the site.
SO 044510

Article by Paul Remfry
For more information go to http://www.castles99.ukprint.com/Essays/Wales/builth.html

The Mortimers, as the partial heirs of the Braose family, first seem to have become involved with Builth castle in the 1250s when Roger Mortimer (d1282) became castellan* of the fortress. The castle was repeatedly attacked between December 1256 and its fall on 17 July 1260 when it was again thoroughly demolished. Seventeen years later King Edward I ordered it rebuilt as a ‘great tower’ on the motte, with ‘a stone wall with six turrets surrounding the said castle (tower meant?), a ‘drawbridge with two large turrets’ and stone walls enclosing the inner and outer baileys. Between 1277 and 1282 the considerable sum of at least £1,666 9s 5¼d was spent on rebuilding the fortress. The castle again passed to Mortimer hands in 1327, but this time as lords in their own right rather than as castellans. Little now remains of this once major castle except for its earthworks.

*A castellan was the governor or captain of a castle