Old Castle upon Alun (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Castle upon Alen

In the community of St Bride's Major.
In the historic county of Glamorgan.
Modern authority of Vale of Glamorgan.
Preserved county of Mid Glamorgan.

OS Map Grid Reference: SS91137483
Latitude 51.46151° Longitude -3.56880°

Old Castle upon Alun has been described as a Uncertain although is doubtful that it was such.

There are no visible remains.

Description

The large scale O.S. maps mark the site of 'Oldcastle-upon-Alun' in a small field on the N. side of the farm of that name. The name, correctly Oldcastle-upon-Alun, has been extant in the vicinity since the mid-12th century, surviving unchanged for Oldcastle Down, the high ground N.W. of the site. The re-use of medieval dressings in the immediate vicinity increases the credibility of a castle or strong house here. These dressings relate to two doorways, respectively of 13th- and 15th-century character. (Coflein)

Castle upon Alen. No visible remains of the castle. Site is on disturbed ground & overgrown. No trace was found of a motte or a bailey. 2 archways have been incorporated into a wall. (Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust HER)

Sources of information, references and further reading

The National Monument Record (Coflein) number(s) for this site is/are 300402.
The County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) for this site is/are 00423m.

Books
- Morgan, Gerald, 2008, Castles in Wales: A Handbook (Talybont: Y Lolfa Cyf.) p. 254 (listed as possible)
  Reid, Alan, 1998, Castles of Wales (John Jones Publishing) p. 56
  Salter, Mike, 1991, The Castles of Gwent, Glamorgan and Gower (Malvern) p. 75 (slight)
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 174 (reject)
  Hague, D.B., 1971, in Pugh, T.B. (ed), Glamorgan County History Vol. 3 The Middle Ages (Cardiff) p. 439

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales, the four welsh archaeological trusts and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain Designated Historic Asset Descriptive Information from The Welsh Historic Environment Service (Cadw), licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown.
Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Lidar coverage in the UK is not complete. The button above will give an idea of the area of coverage. Higher resolution lidar images in both DSM and DTM form may be available from Lle A geo-Portal for Wales (click the preview tag to bring up a map and then select format byclicking on the small blue diamond in the top right corner of the map.)

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

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