The Château du Garranée was originally constructed in the 11th century. It was modified in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. A tower is all that remains of another castle, believed to be 13th century, belonging to the abbots of Faget. The ground floor had no openings other than a small bay in the southern wall. It represented the typical medieval military architecture of the region. It was already in ruins at the French Revolution.
Built around AD 90 to entertain the legionaries stationed at the fort of Caerleon (Isca), the impressive amphitheatre was the Roman equivalent of today’s multiplex cinema. Wooden benches provided seating for up to 6,000 spectators, who would gather to watch bloodthirsty displays featuring gladiatorial combat and exotic wild animals.
Long after the Romans left, the amphitheatre took on a new life in Arthurian legend. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the somewhat imaginative 12th-century scholar, wrote in his History of the Kings of Britain that Arthur was crowned in Caerleon and that the ruined amphitheatre was actually the remains of King Arthur’s Round Table.
Today it is the most complete Roman amphitheatre in Britain.