A Vanished Castle in Newport - Ebboth or Greenfield Castle

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A Vanished Castle in Newport
Ebboth or Greenfield Castle


A sketch copied from the the Tithe Map and with features such as the possible motte copied from the OS map 25" to the mile. The existing mound is small and might not be a motte. 

In March 1457 Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke and Margaret Beaufort, the thirteen year old widow of his brother Edmund, were guests of the duke of Buckingham at his castle of Ebboth (or Greenfield).  We would now call this Maesglas, part of Newport close to the river Ebbw.  So where was this castle that was fit to receive such visitors, and why not use the duke’s castle at Newport?

Margaret had given birth two months earlier at Pembroke castle to her only child.  He would eventually become Henry VII, the first Tudor king, and father of Henry VIII.  She was a tiny person, the birth had apparently been difficult, and travelling was not easy.  The likely explanation is that as a rich and under age widow Margaret needed to find a new husband for protection.  The tensions that led to the Wars of the Roses (or Cousins’ War) were acute in the Marches of Wales. Jasper held the lordship of Caldicot, and had inherited Magor, Humphrey Stafford, duke of Buckingham held Newport and Brecon.  Together they formed a power block in south east Wales, even though Caerleon, Usk and Abergavenny were held by Yorkists.  Not long after this visit Margaret married Humphrey’s younger brother, Sir Henry Stafford. 

So was the castle of Ebboth more discreet, quieter or even more luxurious for such a visit than that of Newport?  What do we know about it?  In 1587 Thomas Churchyard called it,
                    ‘A goodly seate, a tower, a princely pyle,
                    Built as a watch, or safetie for the soyle,
                    By river stands, from Neawport not three mile.’
By then though it was let to a tenant, and seems to have eventually deteriorated into farm buildings.

            Archbishop William Coxe was taken to visit the site in 1801. He describes it as a,   
                 ‘once strong and splendid castle’ whose remains ‘consist of a building now used                     as a stable for cattle, a square tower with a spiral staircase, a stone edifice                            containing several apartments, in one of which is a large fire-place, with a fine                        gothic entrance, and in the inside several gothic doors.’  
The tenant of the adjacent farmhouse also informed him that there had been, within living memory a place where vessels used to unload.

St Woolos Tithe map shows a substantial E shaped building, near to the farm house.  The site is now underneath the playing fields of Maesglas Primary School and some of the gardens of houses in Maesglas Crescent. It would be interesting to know if any of the foundations could still be unearthed from a back garden.

Anne Dunton

The 'Doorway at Castle, (?) Maesglas Farm, Pont Ebbw , Newport
Sketch by William Henry Green 8 July 1892
The Scrapbook of William Henry Green page 146, 
 Copyright: Torfaen Museum Trust
Also kind permission of Newport's Past



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