Kirsten W. and I went to the nearby town of Caerphilly (known to some as "Caer-filthy", for whatever reason) on June 4th. Being Doctor Who nuts, we were excited to see what we could recognise from the show. The train-station is literally uphill from the castle.
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| I love the mountains here. It feels a lot like Vermont. |
The castle is huge! It is surrounded by a sophisticated series of artificial lakes. It also introduced the concept of concentric castle defenses to the UK. Kirsten and I walked along the paths, looking to find the bridge across.
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| So many geese and ducks! |
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| Outer castle gate |
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| Look at how secure those edges are on the walls! This place was meant for sieges. |
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| Imposing! |
Once inside, we went exploring.
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| Castle Walls |
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| Great Hall on the left |
Inside the Great Hall and surrounding areas.
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| I can sorta see a face! |
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| All these arches! |
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| View back down into the Great Hall |
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| No big deal, just surveying my lands. |
We climbed around to the towers.
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| Kirsten cameos in the picture |
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| Remember this room? This is where the Master is resurrected in "End of Time" in Doctor Who! |
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| I wonde whose coat of arms these are? |
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| Spiral stairs leading away from the medieval toilets |
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| 2008- probably when this room was restored |
We ended up at the gatehouse. They projected a portcullis that would rise and fall.
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| With the appropriate sound-effects |
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| Crash! |
We returned to the courtyard.
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| Vaulted Ceiling in a room. Now that I've been to Guedelon, I can appreciate the work that went into this! |
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| There are mini-stalagmites where the water fell on the stones. |
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| Privy! |
Up on the wooden area of the castle was a hourd. These were constructed on the walls of a castle during a siege. It allowed a better line of fire for archers. These were later improved upon and replaced with masonry machicolations in subsequent castles.
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| Model archer and a peasant dropping stones through a murder hole. |
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| View down the hourd |
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| Archer's point of view |
We also watched a short animated film about the history of Caerphilly Castle. It was some Game of Thrones-level stories of intrigue, rebellion, sieges, and decapitations. Probably the best part was when Queen Isabella of France had Hugh Despenser executed in an exceptionally brutal way (hanged, drawn and quartered) while onlookers feasted. Top that, George RR Martin. Actually, please don't. I'd still like to feel feelings.
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| The animators had a bit too much fun with this scene. |
We walked back out into the area between the inner and outer walls.
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| Wanna try scaling those walls? |
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| Fancy a swim? |
In the courtyard they had working replicas of medieval siege weapons. I was pleased.
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| Ballista |
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| Mangonel |
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| Trebuchet and Perrier (varient of the Trebuchet) |
We walked to the North Lake (
Y Llyn Gogleddol).
Since it was such a nice day, Kirsten and I decided to get some icecream. Of course we got 99 flake ice cream. Yum yum. We had to circle around the entire castle grounds and through a construction road to get the ice cream truck, but it was well worth it!
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| Parting shot of Caerphilly Castle |
We had a full day of walking around, so we headed for the next train to Cardiff.
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| View from the bridge across the railway |
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| Waiting for the train |
Cheers!
You will be so Jealous. When I was a medieval re-enactor I slept in the great hall at Caerphilly and then got to fire the seige engines. It was so much fun! A friend, Simon, hit a sparrow when he was firing the perrier. So the rest of the weekend he was known as 'Sir Simon the Sparrow Slayer', you couldn't make it up!
ReplyDeleteBeckyx
That sounds so cool! I'd love to be a medieval re-enactor, that sounds like a bunch of fun. And I am a little jealous that you could actually fire the siege weapons. x
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