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Caerphilly Castle | ||||||
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In the town centre, Caerphilly, South Wales n5t20to Caerphilly is unusual in being a late castle built on a virgin site. This allowed a unity of conception rare in medieval castles. It is a double-skinned parallelogram surrounded by large-scale water defences. The concentric arrangement was more flexible than earlier plans. It gave rapid access to any part of the castle by mural passages and wall-walks, towers and gatehouses could be independently held, attackers could be well covered and there was no possibility of mounting siege engines against the inner walls. The castle’s cellular structure and strength is indicated by the presence of numerous portcullises. The outer skin or ward is formed by a low battlemented curtain wall with large
semi-circular projections in the corners and gatehouses in the middle of the
east and west sides. Only a narrow strip separates this from the much stronger
inner ward which has high curtain walls, circular corner towers and two large
strong gatehouses corresponding with the outer ones. The great east gatehouse
is the highest part of the castle and was its nucleus. As will be seen, it could
be separately defended if necessary. The outer gatehouse on the east side (right) is both the present and the original
entrance. Here the main characteristics of the castle as deterrent become apparent
- its great strength, its severity, its lack of windows and lack of decoration.
Inside the gatehouse is an exhibition about the castle, and stairs lead up to
roof level, from which is a panoramic view. Crossed rather than plain arrowslits
in this gatehouse and in other buildings on the dams show that they are slightly
later than the main castle. To the left is the platform of the south dam, the
wider northern end of which may be partly natural, but the southern end of which
is entirely artificial. Half-way along are the ruins of a mill, and at the south
end are two towers and a rectangular gatehouse which gave access to the medieval
borough (below). On the south side of the inner ward are the great hall and state apartments. The large ground-floor hall, which was evidently a sumptuous building, was remodelled by Hugh le Despenser the Younger in 1322-6 and was restored by the 3rd marquis of Bute in the late 19th century. Originally the timber roof was lower, carried on the four carved corbels still in place in the south wall. Hugh le Despenser brought in the best craftsmen, who raised the roof and gave the four windows a decorated ogee shape, rich mouldings, and glass. The door was treated in the same way, and the whole building was faced with ashlar. The two doors at the east end led to a buttery and cellar, possibly with a small chapel over them. To the west were the state apartments, well-appointed rooms with fireplaces and a large traceried window on the first floor. The castle’s active history was an extremely short one. By 1283 Edward
I had removed the threat of Welsh independence and the need for Caerphilly had
gone. Minor Welsh attacks in 1294-5 and 1316 failed to make any impact. The
last action that Caerphilly saw was in the war between Edward II and his queen,
Isabella. Intent on destroying the power of her husband and his favourite Hugh
le Despenser, Isabella besieged the castle from December 1326 to March 1327.
But by this time Edward had fled and Hugh had been hanged. Thereafter the castle
declined and fell into ruin. In the late 16th century Thomas Lewis of The Van,
just outside Caerphilly, was granted permission to use its stone to build his
new house, thus accelerating its dilapidation. In the Civil War it was unusable
and an earthwork redoubt was built instead to the north-west, the remains of
which are still visible in the trees beyond the north lake. By the 18th century
the lakes were dry and houses had been built against the foot of the south dam.
That the castle rose again from its sorry state is due to the visionary clearance
and restoration work undertaken by the Bute family and the imaginative reflooding
of the lakes by the state in the 1950s. |
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