Caldicot Castle

Visit Caldicot Castle in its beautiful setting of tranquil gardens and a wooded country park. Founded by the Normans, developed in royal hands as a stronghold in the Middle Ages and restored as a Victorian family home, the castle has a romantic and colourful history. 

History of Caldicot Castle

Built by Humphrey III de Bohun in about 1170. The Bohun family held the manor and castle of Caldicot for more than two centuries, over eight generations.

In 1376 the manor passed to Thomas of Woodstock, the fifth son of King Edward III of England, when he married Alianore de Bohun.

In 1381 Thomas gave orders for major new work to be done on the castle. A new gatehouse and drawbridge were constructed. At the rear of the castle a dovecote was replaced by a new tower with private chambers, now known as the Woodstock tower. At the foot of the Woodstock tower two carved stones were to be placed, one marked 'Thomas' the other 'Alianore'.

In 1397, on the orders of king Richard II, Thomas was kidnapped and murdered. His property was confiscated and passed into the hands of the Crown.

In 1399 Henry Bolingbroke seized the throne from Richard, and although Mary de Bohun did not live to see her husband crowned Henry IV, her son, born at Monmouth Castle, would be one of the country's great heroes, Henry V, victor of Agincourt.

The division of the de Bohuns estates was revised after the death of Alianore and Mary de Bohun's mother Joan, who had outlived both of her daughters by some twenty years. Alianore's eldest daughter and heir, Anne, lost Caldicot to Mary's son King Henry V, and so Caldicot became part of the great Duchy of Lancaster. Held by Henry's widow, Katherine of Valois.

Caldicot was later granted into the stewardship of the Herbert family for much of the fifteenth century, and then leased in the sixteenth century to their successors the Somersets with their power base at Rhaglan