part victorian folly, part medieval castle, wales castell coch is entirely megical story and photography by randall hyman
Randall Hyman
“Look at Sleeping Beauty’s bedroom!”
Randall Hyman
Lisa Griffiths exclaimed to her three-year-old niece Lauren as they admired the ornate, medieval-style bed crowned with large crystal balls. Moorish arches ringed the spacious tower bedchamber beneath a massive chandelier and cavernous domed ceiling lined with romantic illustrations of birds, flowers, and animals. They craned their necks in awe.
Janice Carey settled on a wooden bench behind them and delighted in her granddaughter’s excited chatter. “She wanted to visit Sleeping Beauty’s castle. It’s a fairy tale castle, isn’t it? She just couldn’t wait to see it.”
Like the Careys, some 80,000 tourists visit Castell Coch just north of Cardiff every year to see the stuff dreams are made of. To little girls and young brides it is a story book castle, but its creators saw it as a slumbering beauty buried by the Middle Ages and revived by Victorian passions.
WHEN BRITAIN’S WEALTHIEST MAN—John Patrick Crichton Stuart, Third Marquis of Bute—met the renowned architect William Burges in 1865, the two hardly seemed soul mates. Lord Bute was exceedingly shy, erudite, and avidly pro-Catholic. Burges was flamboyant, temperamental, and resolutely secular. But both were ardent medievalists. Burges had extensively toured historic architecture throughout Europe, and Bute had mastered some 20 languages including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Welsh.
Together the men re-created two castles atop medieval ruins on Bute’s lands. Cardiff Castle became Bute’s principal residence in Wales while Castell Coch was to be his summer retreat. Burges died suddenly in 1881, ten years before Castell Coch’s completion. By the time the castle was finished, Bute was in his waning years and he seldom visited. After Bute’s death in 1900, the distinctive, three-towered, conical-roofed castle set high along the forested bluffs of the Taff Valley was slowly forgotten, a sleeping beauty once more awaiting rescue.
Randall Hyman
Randall Hyman
Randall Hyman
Randall Hyman
PICTURE LIBRARY, NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, LONDON
Randall Hyman
Randall Hyman
its creators saw it as a slumbering beauty buried by the middle ages and victorian passions.
“Locals saw it as a folly,” mused Jeff Grundy, deputy head custodian since 1998. “My father used to say that. But I think there is renewed interest. We’ve opened up some of the medieval parts in the last few years, rooms that take you to the 13th century. It really changes all the history—people begin to realize there was a castle here in the Middle Ages. We have the only double-vaulted medieval ceiling in south Wales.”
when bute’s grandson deeded castell coch to the Ministry of Works in 1950, it was in no fit state to entertain guests. Welsh Historic Monuments (CADW) first opened the castle doors to the public in 1954 with limited access to a few select rooms. Dazzled by the eclectic potpourri of Gothic, Moorish, and pre-Raphaelite interiors, visitors often overlooked the castle’s ancient history. They missed half the story. Burges had worked mightily to recreate the castle’s simple medieval architecture. He meticulously surveyed and researched the ruins, preserving whatever elements he could.
The spur buttresses on the keep and kitchen towers and parts of the curtain wall are original. Two medieval rooms survive, one a dungeon converted into a wine cellar. The dungeon may well have seen use in the 1200s when Marcher lords erected such fortresses across south Wales during Llywelyn ap Gruffudd’s fight for Welsh sovereignty.
“There was supposed to have been a battle where the golf course is now,” David Snook told his 14-year-old daughter Jasmin as they admired stained glass window replicas on display atop the well tower. The original windows graced a chapel that once jutted out from the tower on wooden timbers before it was removed in the 1890s. “When I was a boy some of my friends walked through there at night, and they swore they heard the shouts of men and clatter of swords.”
by the early 1300s, less than a century after construction, battle had reduced much of the castle to rubble. Burges faithfully restored what he could and then let his imagination take flight. The steep conical roofs, for example, are a Swiss design with no historic justification. Reality and fantasy meet where grey medieval masonry gives way to the newer courses of red limestone all around the castle. In Welsh, Castell Coch means “red castle.”
The two-storey banqueting hall connecting the keep and kitchen tower runs opposite a semicircular rampart that stretches from the kitchen tower to the well tower with an upper gallery walk. Completing the circle is a three-story guard tower between the well tower and castle keep. A drawbridge and ramp stretch across a dry moat from the guard tower to the outside grounds.
Randall Hyman
Randall Hyman
The keep contains Castell Coch’s two most stunning rooms, the drawing room and Lady Bute’s bedroom, but the guard tower beside it is the key to understanding the lord of the castle. Bute was just six months old when his father died of a heart attack in 1848. The elder Bute was at his peak, having transformed Cardiff into one of the world’s busiest coal parts, and vastly multiplied his riches by investing in docks, mines, and property. Blessed and burdened with unimaginable wealth, the younger Bute ultimately turned to books more than bookkeeping.
“He was the richest man in Victoria’s empire,” explained Matthew Williams, curator at nearby Cardiff Castle. “His money was drawn from the industry of south Wales, but he was turning his back on that and retiring into the past. In building Castell Coch, he was able to raise a drawbridge on the world.”
Bute even had Burges design a fireplace and “murder holes” in the guard tower’s portcullis chamber, whence the drawbridge and iron-strapped wooden gate were raised and lowered in opposition to one another from a pair of windlasses. Medieval defenders used such fireplaces to boil oil, which they then poured down the murder holes upon uninvited guests. Bute never employed these defences, but, by some accounts, Burges might have been tempted.
“Burges was a bachelor—not through choice, but probably because he was so damned grumpy,” laughed Williams, author of a newly published biography on the architect. “He was flamboyant, very short, barely five feet tall, bad tempered, enthusiastic, and with a schoolboy sense of humour. Like Bute, he was steeped in the Middle Ages, a medievalist. There are photos of him in a joker’s costume, presumably at some party.”
In a way, the castle’s contrasting exterior and interior personify the opposite yet sympathetic natures of Bute and Burges: one simple and spare, the other ostentatious and opulent. When Burges died in 1881 the castle was a glorious shell, complete outside and empty within, but the irascible medieval joker was not to be cheated by death.
Burges had prepared meticulous drawings for each room, and his handpicked team of craftsmen saw every detail through to fruition. Lady Bute’s space conjures visions of Sleeping Beauty while the drawing room on the floor directly below is a dizzying concoction of disparate styles. Three large statues of the Greek goddesses of birth, life, and death perch above the fireplace. Characters from Aesop’s Fables line the walls as birds and stars soar across the ceiling. Ornately painted Victorian furniture framed by an upper level gallery of Moorish arches completes the potpourri.
Randall Hyman
Randall Hyman
“Like many aristocrats, Burges smoked opium,” Williams added. “In one letter I ran across he complains of missing an appointment because he’d smoked so much the night before. One can’t really say, but some of his creativity may have been influenced by it.”
Burges limited his more extravagant designs to Lady Bute’s bedroom and the drawing room, sticking to relatively sedate styles for Lord Bute’s bedroom and the banqueting hall. The banqueting hall is pure gothic, with no wild surprises. A high, arched ceiling and wall murals of early Christian themes dominate. Lord Bute’s bedroom, in the guard tower above the portcullis chamber, is also understated and surprisingly small. Simplest of all is the kitchen.
SEE FOR YOURSELF
CASTELL COCH is just one of the many interesting stops we’ll make when we visit Wales this autumn on our BRITISH HERITAGE/Lord Addison Travel CASTLES OF WALES TOUR.
Of all the popular images of Wales, none is more dramatic and enduring than the magnificent medieval castles that punctuate this principality. Born of the conflict between Wales and England, these majestic fortresses have histories as unique as their strategic locations on coastline or hilltop. From Harlech, to Caernarfon, to Chepstow, and also Caerphilly Castle, we’ll explore the best Wales has to offer.
Of course, there’s more to Wales than just its ancient castles. Our travels will include visits to the Rhondda Heritage Park, the award-winning Museum of Welsh Life, and, most appropriately, Castell Coch and Cardiff Castle—two castles built more for comfort and whimsey than for defence. We end in London, with its limitless riches of history and culture. Its parks and monuments, museums and boulevards are an enchantment to discover.
For a complete itinerary and prices, phone 800-326-0170, write to Lord Addison Travel, P.O. Box 307, Peterborough, NH 03458, or visit the BH Tours page at BritishHeritage.com.
Randall Hyman
Randall Hyman
SISTER CASTLES
Castell Coch charms; Cardiff Castle seduces. Like beautiful sisters, they share backgrounds but not personalities. Both are medieval recreations in Victorian dress with assorted Catholic, Oriental, and Moorish trim. Cardiff Castle is like Castell Coch with no scruples. Here Burges and Bute entertained their wildest fantasies in architecture and design, sparing no expense or whim. Besides bedrooms, nursery, dining rooms, library, smoking rooms, and a roof garden, Cardiff Castle features theme rooms such as the Arab and Chaucer Rooms. A clock tower bedecked with fanciful animal figurines and a massive Roman wall enclose the vast grounds, at the centre of which stands a restored Roman keep atop a tall mound. Located in the city centre, the castle pulls in some 200,000 visitors a year. For a wild fling, see Cardiff Castle. Tel: 029 2087 8100, web: www.cardiffcastle.com.
Randall Hyman
Randall Hyman
JOURNEY NOTES
Castell Coch Hours: spring 9.30 am-5 pm, summer 9.30 am-6 pm, fall/winter 9.30-4 pm; all Sundays have shortened hours. Tel: 029 2081 0101; web: www.cadw.wales.gov.uk/cadw/sites/site032.html.
Getting About: BMI, in conjunction with Star Alliance partner United Airlines, offers service from Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles to Manchester, a short drive from Wales. State-of-the-art video equipment at each seat, ample leg space, and on-board chef in business class make time fly. Tel: 800-788-0555; web: www.flybmi.com.
Kemwel Autos simplifies car rental with prepaid vouchers and discounted rates through major companies such as National and Alamo. Extended three-week rates are especially economical. Tel: 800-678-0678 or 877-820-0668; web: www.kemwel.com.
Accommodation: Thistle Cardiff, a renovated Victorian hotel, boasts old-world charm and spacious rooms in the heart of the Welsh capital, a short walk from Cardiff Castle and a 15-minute drive from Castell Coch. Tel: (Wales) 0870 333 9292, (U.S.) 800-847-4358; web: www.thistlehotels.com/cardiff.
Wales information: See the Wales Tourist Board website: www.visitwales.com.
FANTASYLAND
To read about another Welsh wonder, the fantasy village of Portmeirion, visit the Travel page of BritishHeritage.com.
“I like the size,” laughed local resident Joan McLoughlin as she looked at the spacious room with its large cooking range in the chimney. When Burges surveyed the castle in 1872 he identified three such fireplaces in the room.
“I wish our kitchen was this big.” McLoughlin added. “I was born two miles up the road. Growing up I just accepted the castle—it was always there. It’s nice to come visit on a hot day like this and go to the dungeons to cool off, but don’t hang about—you’ll die of hypothermia!”
Castell coch is populer for more than just cooling off. Since a 1994 British law first allowed weddings in non-church venues, the castle has averaged some 150 ceremonies each year.
“We had one yesterday and the bride wore a dress specially fitted for riding a horse,” a tearoom waitress said as she served coffee in the octagonal chamber Burges originally designed as the valet’s room. “She rode up the drawbridge in it. It’s like a fairytale here, it is.”
Some grooms arrive in shining armour. Other couples opt for a horse-drawn carriage, Cinderella style. For their own nuptials, Tony and Jill Davies chose velvet tux, satin gown, and a white Rolls Royce, but theirs was still a fairytale wedding.
As they walked down the long ramp from the drawbridge, their official photographer ushered the excited crowd of friends and family over toward the Rolls Royce. On his signal, as bride and groom kissed beneath the towers and drawbridge in the late afternoon sun, the crowd showered them with rose petals and the cameras clicked. Just as Bute and Burges envisioned, Castell Coch seemed a place where dreams really do come true.