A Lost Medieval
Masterpiece
Between 1327 and 1331, Alina de Braose — widow, survivor, and rightful Lady of Gower — extended and transformed the Chapel Tower at Oystermouth Castle. After years of imprisonment, dispossession, and loss under the tyranny of the Despensers, she returned to reclaim not just her lands but her spirit.
As Anthony Hughes writes in Oystermouth Castle: A Personal Tour, the Chapel Tower stands as "the most eloquent architectural expression of her recovery" — a space not of ostentation but of reparation: private worship, reflection, and healing. Its refined masonry, trefoil-headed windows, and graceful proportions speak of a woman who turned pain into beauty and greed's ruin into holiness.
Within this chapel, a 14th-century crucifixion fresco was painted — depicting two angels beneath a Gothic architectural canopy, accompanied by heraldic shields of the de Braose family. For seven centuries, that vibrant sacred artwork has been invisible to visitors, hidden beneath layers of whitewash and the quiet decay of time itself.
Using cutting-edge spatial AR technology on the XREAL Air 2 Ultra glasses and Beam Pro, we have digitally reconstructed the chapel as it appeared in Alina's lifetime — returning colour, narrative, and devotion to stone that has stood silent for generations.
The south recess — the confession spot — once bore the fresco Alina commissioned as an act of faith transfigured through endurance. Today, through AR, it lives again. — Hughes, A. (2024). Oystermouth Castle: A Personal Tour. Local Heritage Publishing.
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