One thing I didn’t expect from my visit to Caerphilly Castle was the wonderful artworks on
display here and there. I’m not talking about paintings by Monet or sculptures
by Henry Moore – these are artworks that relate perfectly to their surroundings
and help to tell the story of the castle and its history
The artworks were part of a £260,000 investment four years ago by CADW, the Welsh government’s
historic environment service, and were intended to ‘increase public access,
enjoyment and participation in Wales ’s
heritage’. I didn’t see the castle before these
improvements were made, obviously, but I certainly think Caerphilly is one of
the better castles I’ve seen, in terms of how it maintains the interest of its
visitors, and explains the features and history of this amazing place.
These are four of the special
features that caught my eye:
This giant wooden statue is hard to miss as
it appears to hold up the castle’s leaning tower – that’s a 10-degree lean,
apparently, which is even more than the famous Pisa tower. Created by sculptor John Merrill,
the 20-foot-tall statue represents the 4th Marquess of Bute. His
great-great-grandfather, John Stuart, acquired the ruined castle in 1776; his
father John Crichton-Stuart, the 3rd Marquess, had the site surveyed and the
great hall reroofed in the 1870s; and then along came the next John
Crichton-Stuart, the 4th Marquess, who was responsible for restoring the dilapidated
ruins of the castle between 1928 and 1939. Go the Butes!
When I was researching the sculptor, John
Merrill, I found a fascinating series of photos of his progress on this artwork which you might also enjoy looking at – they're on his website here.
Though you can’t see it
in my photo, on top of the castle walls behind this stone-sculpted knight is a
covered boardwalk (it’s probably got a technical castle-ish name but I don’t
know it) where his enemies are housed, preparing to repel his attack by
showering him with arrows and stones and the dreaded burning oil, so he’s
hunkering down behind his shield to protect himself from that assault. It’s a
cracking sculpture, don’t you think?
This knight in rusty
armour gave me a shock, lurking as he does in a dark corner. I don’t know his
story – maybe he’s just one of the many knights who served in the castle guard
– but he’s a tall, dark and handsome fellow.
These four pieces were
my favourites though, unfortunately, the light was very poor in their little
round tower room so I wasn’t able to get good photos, particularly of the backs
of their heads (which were also carved). Sculpted in 2013 by Rubin Eynon, the piece is entitled ‘Four
Heads’ and, as a signboard indicated, they are ‘the villain, the king, his wife
and her lover: A tale of power, greed, lust and violent death at the top of the
medieval world’.
This dramatic piece of
medieval history goes something like this:
The king was Edward II (1284-1327), a tyrant whose vicious rule and battles with
his barons turned his kingdom against him. The villain was Hugh le Despenser
(1286-1326), Lord of Glamorgan and owner of Caerphilly Castle .
Hugh was a close friend of Edward’s, and aided and abetted the king’s tyranny. In 1325 Edward’s queen, Isabella (1295-1358) went to France , in theory to negotiate peaceful
relations between her husband and her brother, the French king Charles IV but,
in fact, she had other plans.
In France Isabella met up with Roger Mortimer (1287-1330), who had led a revolt
against Edward II in 1322 and was the sworn enemy of Hugh le Despenser. Roger
became Isabella’s lover and, together, they returned to England with an army and wrested control of England from
the king. Both the king and the villain tried to escape Isabella’s clutches by
fleeing to Wales
but were soon caught.
Edward was forced to relinquish his crown to
his 14-year-old son, Edward III, and died a few months later, probably murdered
on Isabella’s orders. The villain Despenser met a rather more gruesome end: he was
hung, drawn and quartered in Hereford
on 24 November 1326.
But wait, there’s more. Initially,
Isabella, with Roger Mortimer a very active co-ruler, ruled England as
regent for Isabella’s young son but, in 1330, Edward III took back his
authority, and Roger the lover, accused of over-stepping his authority and assuming
royal power, was also hanged. Isabella was allowed to live on, in style but
without the power she had once enjoyed, until she died a natural death in 1358.
Here endeth this lesson in English and Welsh
history, and the tale of the villain, the king, his
wife and her lover, and a brief look at some of the extras Caerphilly Castle
has to offer. But there’s lots more to see and explore so, if you ever get the
chance, do go and visit this magnificent place.
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