Hay Castle 3
Criminals and clergy, 1800's
As recently as the early 1800's the dungeon of the original castle was still being used as the gaol for the town. In 1810 a new 'lock-up' for Hay was built on the site of St John's Chapel in the centre of the town.
In its later years the mansion attached to the castle became a residence for the 'gentry'. From 1825 until the turn of the century it served as a vicarage for the clergy of Hay, and the Rev. Francis Kilvert, the famous Victorian diarist who held the living in nearby Clyro for many years, was a frequent visitor to the castle.
Hay Castle
c1935
Photograph by
kind permission of
Eric Lewis Pugh
of Hay
photographed
in 1999
The
mansion was severely damaged by a disastrous fire in 1939, but
was later substantially restored.Another fire in 1977 caused as much destruction as the first, and today much of the Jacobean building is little more than an empty shell open to the elements.
The habitable part of the castle is now part of the second-hand book trade brought to Hay by Richard Booth, for which the town is now known all over the world.
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