Abergavenny town walls

Abergavenny’s town walls once enclosed the town in a stone oval about 350 metres by 215 metres. They were built in the late 13th century after earlier wooden defences were removed. The king allowed the town to raise taxes on certain goods to pay for the walls and keep them in repair. By the 21st century only scattered pieces of masonry remain above ground. The line of the wall is still visible in later buildings and boundary walls that follow its course. The walls protected a town that grew up beside a Norman castle built soon after the invasion of Wales in the 11th century. The first defences were a wooden rectangle with a V-shaped ditch, stopping short of today’s Cross Street. When the ditch was filled in during the 12th century the town had no defences for a time. The new stone walls were larger and formed an oval shape around the whole settlement. Visitors can walk parts of the old line where later walls and buildings stand on the original foundations. Occasional stretches of medieval masonry appear along back lanes and behind shops. The route roughly follows the modern streets that mark the edge of the old enclosure. From these quiet lanes there are views across the town to the castle mound on one side and the surrounding hills on the other.