URPoint Details
Parking and toilets. Some disabled car parking opposite the castle in the Twyn carpark (follow signs to town centre, not castle), pay and display. Accessible to ground floor generally, although there is a slope at the entrance. ground floor of the castles of wales exhibition and the Great Hall are accessible.
Vast, impressive, Caerphilly is the grandest and biggest castle in Wales, equalled in Britain only by Windsor and Dover. Its fortifications and above all the scale of its water defences is scarcely rivalled anywhere in Europe. More amazing that this massive engineering feat was largely achieved within two decades (c.1268-88).
Caerphilly was built by 'Red Gilbert' de Clare, Lord of Glamorgan, to defend his threatened territories against Llywelyn the Last, Prince of Wales.
Flooding a valley to create a thirty-acre lake he set his fortress on three artificial islands. On the central island, the core of the stronghold, stands a castle complete in itself, with a double 'concentri' circuit of walls and four gatehouses, one large and powerful enough to serve as an independent final refuge. Famous for its 'leaning tower', this astonishing multiple fortress now displays a fascinating
- Type:
- Landmark