Abergavenny castle's keep now houses a small museum. It tells the history of the castle and the town, and includes recreations of a 19th-century Welsh farmhouse kitchen, a saddlery workshop and the fascinating Basil Jones' grocery shop, with many items dating back to the 1930s and '40s. Not much remains of the actual castle except for an impressive stretch of curtain wall on either side of the gatehouse on the northwest side.
The scant ruins belie a drama-charged past. It was the site of a notorious event in 1175 when the Norman lord William de Braose invited his Welsh rivals for a Christmas dinner and had them massacred. Frequently besieged but never taken, the castle was wrecked by royalist forces in 1645 during the Civil War in order to keep it out of parliamentary hands.
For the museum, pre-booking via the Visit Monmouthshire website (www.visitmonmouthshire.com) was obligatory at the time of research.
