Picton Castle

Picton Castle was built to meet the need recorded in the exact account, not simply to make a landmark. The source presents this as tradition or interpretation rather than settled fact: the site chosen for the castle he built may have been on a mound a few hundred yards to the east of the present house, but in any event, the present building was in place by the end of the thirteenth century and was by then in the hands of the Wogan family, who were now the owners of Wiston Castle. The Picton Castle estate thus came into the hands of the Philipps family when Sir Henry's daughter Jane married Sir Thomas ap Philipps of Cilsant in the 1490s.

The designers, owners and workers connected with Picton Castle show who made the building function. By the 13th century, Wiston Castle seems to have been abandoned and the Wogan family lived at Picton Castle, where their heirs have lived ever since. In June 1762, Cesar Picton, a black child presumably taken from Senegal, travelled with the Phillips family from Norbiton Place in Kingston upon Thames to Picton Castle, but did not return with the family to England in October.

Later rebuilding, new equipment and new uses changed Picton Castle as needs changed. The castle and gardens are now owned and managed by the Picton Castle Trust, a registered charity, for the benefit of the public. The source presents this as tradition or interpretation rather than settled fact: the circumstances under which Picton Castle came to be owned by the Wogans is unclear, but it may have been through a failure to beget male heirs or through the marriage of an heiress to one of the Wogans.

The surviving parts of Picton Castle are separated from work that was lost, rebuilt or only reported in older accounts. Picton Castle (Welsh: Castell Pictwn) is a medieval castle near Haverfordwest in the community of Uzmaston, Boulston and Slebech, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Picton Castle began as a motte castle and was reconstructed in stone by Sir John Wogan between 1295 and 1308.

Picton Castle matters because its exact story preserves evidence for a wider change in Pembrokeshire, not merely because the name sounds historic. Henry offered to settle the refugees in the hinterland of the Pembroke Lordship - Haverford (the west of the Daugleddau Estuary) and Dungleddy (the east), thus supplementing his garrison at Pembroke Castle with a compliant and grateful local populace; the number of Flemings so settled far outweighed any local Welsh populace (having a significant genetic impact which lasts to this day). Picton Castle is home to the ‘Picton Renoir’ which was featured in BBC's Fake or Fortune? (July 2015).