|
Photo Journal of our 1990 Trip To Wales Day 5 By Rhuddlwm Gawr |
 |
|
All who donate will
receive a 23 page professional Horoscope!
To Donate by Credit Card click on the Button Below Thank You for Whatever you can do. |
DAY 5.......FRIDAY JULY 27
This morning we drove to Cardiff to visit the University of Wales Library and the National Museum. We then stopped at Caerphilly Castle on the way back to the castle Hotel.
CARDIFF
You'll love Cardiff. After
visiting Cardiff Castle and the National Museum and the University of Wales Library, be
sure to visit St Fagans Folk Museum; its a 16th century manor house in gardens with a folk
museum of Welsh life attached. It is situated in a small village with thatched
cottages and a lovely church. In the grounds are tiny cottages from every corner of
Wales and each century, gyspy caravans, rare sheep, craft workshops etc. There is
even a Witchcraft section if you know who to ask and where to look.
Then visit Cardiff Bay (it used to be called
Tiger Bay) Its motif is modern and vibrant mixed with old traditional buildings. And
while you are down there, have a look at the Norwegen Church.
Norwegen sailors built it. It was due to be demolished because it was constructed of
wood. Rol Dalh, the children's book author, who was born in Cardiff, paid for it to
be resited and restored.
A short train ride by Valley trains of 20 mins takes
you to Caerphilly where the second largest 12th century castle is in the centre of the
town (you can't miss it) Its a 3 ringed crenalated castle with moat and is often used as
the outside setting to many mediaeval films. Between Cardiff and Caerphilly there is
a fairy tale castle called Castell Coch (the Red Castle) situated in a wooded hillside
near the town in Taffs Well. This one you may recognise if you watch vampire films. Of
course Cardiff has its own castle which is a Norman keep.
This is all combined in a multi-cultural and laid back atmosphere. Very Good Night
Clubs as well.
CAERPHILLY CASTLE
Caerphilly Castle was allowed to slowly decay, as happened with the castles in the north of Wales, but unlike those castles, this is not a royal castle. And yet, it was very ambitious. The picture displayed below, shows the immense size of the castle. Look at the people at the entrance and compare them to the size of the entrance way and the castle itself.
During the 1250's and 1260's, a bitter dispute between King Henry III and his barons gave Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Welsh prince, a chance to expand his territories within Wales. Although the dispute was eventually settled, it was not completely resolved, and left certain important questions of land ownership open regarding the Glamorgan uplands. DeClare began construction of the castle to maintain his hold over the region. Caerphilly was at the forefront of military technology of the day. It was the first deliberately planned concentric castle with the "walls-within-walls" defensive system and was additionally surrounded by lakes to make a forced approach doubly difficult. Between the outer entrance and the inner part of the castle are three drawbridges, six portcullises and five sets of double doors. Between ages 75 and 140 a.d., the Romans ruled here in a fort fairly close to the current castle. Between 500 and 1,000 Romans were quartered in the fort. After they left in the 400's, princedoms in Wales grew to replace the Romans; the Welsh were Christian at this time. Following the Norman invasion, powerful Norman barons entrenched themselves along the Welsh border and began to press westward to include this area, although they were not initially successful. It was more than 200 years after the Norman invasion of England that Gilbert started to begin building Caerphilly Castle in 1268. Two years later, Llywelyn attacked the castle and partially burned it. Llywelyn and Henry came to an agreement and the Welsh left the castle under a truce. Work on the castle continued, however, and deClare was able to sneak back in to the castle, which was supposedly then held by two neutral commissioners. Although deClare had broken the truce and was once again in possession of the castle, Llywelyn never again attacked. The double ringed defensive system employed at Caerphilly was later utilized by Edward I in the castles of north Wales. By the time Caerphilly had been built, the feudal levy of men who fought for their lord in return for land had been replaced by a paid professional army. A duke was paid 66 pence a day, knights 10 pence a day, and a Welsh foot soldier 1 pence a day. During a siege, the advancing army would either try to blockade, use a trebuchet or perhaps mine underneath the castle, but because of Caerphilly's water defenses, this was not possible. Trebuchets were likely used, but were not particularly aimworthy. They did find stone missiles found in vrious parts of the castle that would have been fired by a trebuchet, perhaps in a later seige of 1326-27. After that seige, Caerphilly never again took an active role in Welsh affairs. The castle did not play a part in the English Civil War and so did not suffer at that time. However, its water defenses had been eliminated by then and Caerphilly basically languished as a picturesque and romantic site in the 18th century. It was restored in more recent years, although the famous leaning tower of Caerphilly, which extends 10 degrees out of the vertical and leans more than Pisa, has been left as is. What caused the tower to lean is unknown, although the marshy ground on which the castle was built is a likely cause. The third Marquis of Butte inherited the castle in 1866 and he began a restoration program and re-roofed the Great Hall, commissioned a thorough architectural survey, and began to buy up property surrounding the castle. The fourth Marquis of Butte continued the restoration; most of what you see today is as a result of his efforts in the 1930's. In 1950 the castle was given to the State and in 1958, the lakes were restored.
The property is clearly immense and tournaments were held here. There was a sluice gate which regulated the water level, and, across the moat, you can see a trebuchet. In addition, they also have displayed a periet, which is a man-powered catapult, and mangonel, a torsion-powered catapult, and a bolista, man-powered sling catapult. The periet and the trebuchet were entirely medieval war inventions; the other two were used earlier.
After our visit to the castle,
|
|||||||||||||||||||
We are very tired and so went to bed a little early.
|
