The Great Tower, Chepstow Castle, Wales

Abstract

The Great Tower of Chepstow Castle is probably the most important surviving domestic medieval building in Wales. In the Norman period it consisted of a single large room partly surrounded by niches built over a vast undercroft. In the second quarter of the thirteenth century, the first floor was dramatically converted into a more conventional great hall and chamber, through the insertion of new windows and the construction of a pair of sumptuously decorated arches across the building in the most refined Early English style. These alterations also provided a single second-floor chamber, which was extended across the whole building in the 1290s. This article gathers together the documentary, architectural and art historical evidence in an attempt to identify who was the patron of each phase of this remarkable building and what they were hoping it would provide.