The Three Castles, Monmouthshire

Both my children love visiting historical sites especially castles and ancient ruins and luckily Wales is jam-packed with them. Even though Wales is still under stay local guidelines, which means we are limited to staying within 5 miles of our home unless, for essential reasons such as work, this will slowly start to change so I thought it would be a good time to share our experience of visiting the Three Castles.

 The Three Castles comprise of Grosmont, Skenfrith and White Castle, all located in Monmouthshire, Wales and only a few miles from each other, all looked after by Cadw and are free to enter. You can spend the day walking between the three but with small children, I decided driving would be the easiest way to see all three castles although hope to do the walk at some point in the future. 

If you have explored Monmouthshire before you will know it's a beautiful part of the UK it is, with some gorgeous countryside, fantastic pubs and quaint villages and by visiting all three castles it's a great free day out and a fun way to explore the local area. 

We arrived at The White Castle first, which has a small free parking area and with its far-flung views of the Welsh countryside along with its impressive moat and gatehouse, it makes the perfect starting point. There is also plenty of green space for kids to run around and get into the swing of things, mine are usually dressed up in knights costumes re-acting pretend battles.

After spending around an hour at The White Castle we heeded to Grosmont Castle, around a 15min drive away which is located in the stunning village of Grosmont. There isn't directly parking next to the castle but we managed to find a space in the village a couple of minutes walk away, there are also public toilets in the village. While Grosmont is more in a state of ruins that the White Castle there is still a tower you can ascend which gives you fantastic views and also a very ornate 14-century chimney in the north block. No one else was at this castle while we were there meaning we could run around and enjoy the space as much as possible. 

The final castle was Skenfrith Castle in the village of Skenfrith, again only a few miles away from Grosmont and built right alongside the River Monnow in another beautiful Monmouthshire village, plus there is plenty of parking right next to the castle. This castle mainly consists of ruins and foundations but the three-story circular keep is still standing and very impressive. What I really found fascinating about this castle is you could really imagine what life was like there in the 13th century, while the Lord at the time would be nice and dry in his tower keep it must have been very wet and damp for those on the ground floors being right next to the river. 

As with all the castles being free and open to the public (due to Covid-19 please do check before leaving as Cadw has yet to open their doors again) means that there are no staffed facilities or toilets so do try and plan beforehand as well as packing a picnic as there are plenty of places to sit down with some food and take in the scenery. 

There are also plenty of amazing walks nearby and on our drive back we passed Sugarloaf mountain, on of our favourite family mountain hikes as well as the Skirrid - both make for a great day out once Wales reopens to the rest of the UK which should be around the 19th July.