I play squash twice a week with Colin. This July was his 66th birthday and his wife Linda’s birthday followed in August. She had treated him to a guided visit to Bristol Waterfront led by a guide dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, which he enjoyed immensely. He had put up with my ramblings about guide training for the past 9 months over our post match beers and asked if I could do a similar tour for her. I had hoped to practice one of my Cardiff tours, but they opted for Castell Coch. As I may have mentioned in a previous blog, I volunteer at his site every week, so subject matter needed no rehearsal. It was simply a case of putting this in a logical order to lead them around the various rooms. What follows are the first and last parts of my personal tour of the castle.

Castell Coch is often described by those driving past on the A470 and the M4 as a “fairytale castle”. While restoration of the walls takes place, this image has been reinforced by Cadw, who have covered the scaffolding over the Well Tower
(visible in a previous blog) with the Disney inspired tent seen above. In reality, as the photograph below shows, this is gilding the lily and the castle’s faerie nature stands out without Disneyfication.

A visit to Castell Coch is actually a visit to 2 castles for the price of one. The romantic, Victorian folly pictured above was built on the ruins of a medieval stronghold built as part of a ring of castles by the Marcher lord, Gilbert de Clare in the 13th century in order to protect Cardiff Castle, his headquarters in Wales, from the threat of Welsh invasion. Nearby Caerphilly Castle, completed after Castell Coch in 1271, is the best known of these but there are ruins at nearby Morganstown (near the garden centre) and at the Wenallt in Rhiwbina as well as at Morlais near Merthyr.

The grey stone of the Norman foundations is more prominent around the back of the castle, where it’s base on rock can also be seen. It failed to deter Welsh attacks, however, and was taken and spoiled by Llewellyn Bren during his revolt in 1312 and stood as a “noble ruin” for over 500 years, until the 3rd Marquis of Bute started his restoration in 1871. At the time the Marquess was the world’s richest man and had hired the eccentric architect, William Burgess, to restore Cardiff Castle.

The work at Castell Coch was carried out in parallel with this over the next 16 years and was meant to serve as a summer residence for entertaining business rivals (and impressing on them what association with his wealth could buy ), although I prefer to think of it as a “party house”, as it was only used on a few occasions during the Marquess’ lifetime and he is not known to have visited after his friend, Burgess’ death in 1881.

Castell Coch before restoration by William Burgess.

Apart from the neo-Gothic roofs and the weather vanes with B for Bute inscribed, the restoration is meant to as close to the original as Victorian technology and imagination allowed, including a working drawbridge and portcullis to defend the main gate, with a “fighting hourd” above accessible from the Marquess’ bedroom. A working doorbell at the top of the bridge suggests a warmer welcome was offered in Victorian than in Plantaganet times, while today the main defence is the pay booth inside the gate where visitors are charged entry. Before climbing the steep drawbridge, it is worth noting a statue of the Madonna and Child by the Italian sculptor Ceccardo Fucigna, representing Bute’s adherence to Roman Catholicism

Statue of Madonna & Chile and Hourd above the drawbridge at Castell Coch.

On crossing the drawbridge and entering the courtyard, the arrangement of the 3  towers linked by the gatehouse and a curtain wall can easily be seen. The courtyard floor is made of tiles laid vertically. These are actually the old roof tiles placed there when the stone tiles on the roof were replace in the early 1980s. The original floor was flat earth. The usual route for visiting the castle rooms is to mount the steps to the left of the castle gate. I prefer to start in the room at the foot of the Well Tower to the right as this has a video projection showing aerial views of the castle as well as a scale model showing the various rooms, both of which give a better illustration of the layout of the 3 towers. It also contains the castle well, the vital source of fresh water during medieval times with the Burgess mechanism for drawing water via a pump driven by an iron hand wheel. The room also contains an exhibition of old black and white photographs of the castle before restoration (see above) and of the castle vineyard, Britain’s first commercial vineyard, that operated at a profit between 1975 and the onset of the Great War in 1914. Adjacent to the entrance is a set of steps leading down to a recreated dungeon where Ifor Bach, the man who kidnapped the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester from Cardiff Castle, is said to have been imprisoned. While I would like to believe this is true, archaeological evidence suggests that the only remaining part of the interior of the original castle is the wine cellar seen at the end of the tour.

The narrow stair at the back of the Well tower is normally for staff use only, so it is necessary to exit back into the courtyard and climb the stairs to the msteost impressive part of the visit – the Keep Tower. A description of the walk through the Banqueting Hall, the Drawing Room, the Winch Room and Lord & Lady Bute’s Bedrooms would require a chapter for each room and I would recommend anyone wanting to discover more to either visit and use the audio guide available or book a more detailed tour with South Wales Heritage Tours. Suffice to say that it is the splendour of this suite of rooms that makes Castell Coch the most popular of the attractions visited in South Wales (although Cardiff Castle attracts much greater numbers due to its location).

 Over an hour later Colin, Linda and myself moved on to the Kitchen Tower and the  upper floors of the Well Tower. As the support structure, these are not so lavishly appointed, although a collection of 12 stained glass windows representing various saints that were originally part of the Marquess’ private chapel make the climb to the top worth the effort. As a guide, I could spend another hour pointing out some of the details in these lesser known rooms that are often overlooked. I also make a point of including the boiler room, the wine cellar and the gift shop.

Then it was time for lunch with David “Spud” Vater at the nearby Forest Cafe. There is a cafe inside Castell Coch that serves excellent coffee and locally sourced snacks that include and excellent bara brith, but Colin went to school with David and I have known him for over 30 years as his wife used to work for me. Nepotism apart, both the cafe in Castell Coch and the Forest cafe have my whole-hearted endorsement for selling reasonably priced food and drink in an interesting ambiance, with the latter offering a more substantial meal.