Medieval loo with a view - the garderobe at Caerphilly Castle!

Monday, 26th May               Bank Holiday                             Taffs Well

Robyn writes: Today is the Monday of the Bank Holiday weekend and finally, some quite nice Welsh weather! Not exactly clear blue skies but definitely much warmer and, more importantly, no rain at all! We decided to visit Caerphilly Castle which is only about 10 minutes drive away. Cait called on Skype this morning so it was lovely to talk to her and catch up on all of the news.

I must say that Caerphilly is the most impressive castle I've ever seen (and I've now seen a few!) It is one of the few remaining ones which has water in the moat, and what a moat! When it was built during the 1200s by the Norman lord Gilbert de Clare to try to keep the local Welsh under control, there was no high enough hill nearby to give him the usual strategic advantage of height, so his workmen diverted a river instead. It's the most amazing moat/lake system and of course is now colonised by water birds galore (I was wishing I'd thought to take the crusts to feed the ducks and geese!) It's in the middle of the town so is an incredible sight in the middle of this otherwise very ordinary looking town and the locals obviously love the area around it for playing, walking their dogs etc.

We got there around 10 and met up with Glen and Carol, then walked right around to the entrance. As we are English Heritage members, we got in for half price (it's owned by Cadwr, the Welsh heritage organisation). Glen and Carol got in for free as they've both been members for more than a year.

The castle was at one stage the property of Hugh Despenser the younger, the great "favourite" of Edward II. He aquired it through his marriage and spent several years throwing his weight around, aquiring more and more property and being extremely nasty to everyone before Edward's wife Isabella and her lover finally ousted him and he then met an extremely nasty and grisly death of his own. It's incredible to think of the history which has happened on the site.

We had a great time exploring the castle. As it's a bank holiday, there were special displays of medieval life on - weapons, weaving, cooking etc. Some of the castle is in very good repair (having been restored by Lord Bute in Victorian times) and other parts are gone or in a perilous looking state. Some of the towers were blown up during the Civil War and half of one sits looking like a mini leaning Tower of Pisa! I'm assuming they keep an eye on it and it's safe enough, but I really didn't like standing beneath it....there's a statue there "holding it up", though we did notice that its hands don't actually touch the wall. Glen's theory is that if at any stage they notice the hands are touching the wall, they know they're in trouble!

 Looking down from the top tower

Glen doing his best to make sure the tower doesn't fall down!

The Great Hall was a magnificent room - today there were lots of craft stalls there which were nice to look at. It is in really good condition, with a proper metal roof put over it to keep it waterproof. Some of the other rooms in other towers showed that they've been leaking quite badly over the last few rainy days. (Mmmm, what fun it must have been in medieval times in the middle of a rainy Welsh winter!).

 This chamber was in the eastern tower. You can see damp patches on the walls.

 Lex and Glen got to try on a medieval helmet - very heavy!

 Chatting to Ian

We really enjoyed chatting to Ian, one of the volunteers who was displaying armour and weaponry. He's a retired teacher (sigh) who's living the dream - he now works as an actor in lots of TV shows and is currently filming the new Doctor Who series (all he could say is he plays a medic). Amongst his hobbies are restoring vintage cars and bikes, building trebuchets and volunteering for Cadwr (and getting to dress up in medieval clothing). And we thought WE were living the dream!

We had an enjoyable lunch from one of the stalls there (roast wild hog in a bun!) then said a fond farewell to Glen and Carol who had to head back to Leighton Buzzard. We went for a wander around the town, had a cuppa and did our grocery shopping at the local "Morrison's", one of the big grocery chains. It's not like Australia where we really only have Coles and Woollies, there are lots to choose from here.

When we got home, we put away our groceries and had a lovely cuppa out in our garden. Then Lex decided to go for a "bit of a walk", which turned into quite a hike - he made it to the top of one of our nearby hills (About 6 km) for some great views of Taffs Well, our little village and towards Cardiff.

 Looking towards Cardiff

The view of Taffs Well from the hill

It's now just after 10 pm and it's finally got dark (almost). The length of the days is amazing here and we're still nearly 4 weeks away from the longest day!