“Castles and Abbeys of Wales” was written by D J Cathcart King (MC, LLM, FSA) and published by the Department of the Environment in 1975.
The 40 page book features 49 monuments and 32 photographs. The two photos of Castell Coch (below) are prominently featured in the centre of the book.
The monuments are organised by the old ceremonial counties but with South, Mid and West Glamorgan grouped into “Glamorgan”.
David James Cathcart King (1913 – 1989) was a British historian, archaeologist, and teacher.
Castell Coch was placed in the care of the Ministry of Works by the 5th Marquess of Bute in 1950. The “Ministry of Works” was renamed the “Ministry of Public Building and Works” in 1962.
The Ministry of Public Building and Works was absorbed into the Department of the Environment in 1970.
They produced a guide to Castell Coch, also published in 1975. I wrote an article about the official guidebooks from 1957 to 1975.
The photographs in the book are mainly Crown Copyright images but there’s one from “Aerofilms Limited” and one from “Terence Soames (Cardiff) Limited“.
The “Illustrated Souvenir” cost 75p and was available to purchase from the Government Bookshop on The Hayes.
I’ve transcribed the description of Castell Coch below.
Castell Coch
On a wooded hillside near Taff’s Well stands a strange fairy-tale castle with three tall pointed towers. It is plainly a romantic structure of the Victorian Gothic Revival; but a closer view reveals that it is also something far earlier; in short, it is a real castle which has been elaborately rebuilt after long disuse.
Castell Coch – ‘the Red Castle’ – was a castle of the Anglo-Norman lords of Glamorgan. The rounded plan of the courtyard, which is raised 8 or 10 feet above the ground-level, shows that the original form of the castle was a motte, presumably with a timber tower and palisade. This sort of construction is unlikely to have been built after 1200.
The modest earthwork is completely concealed by the massive masonry defences built in the late thirteenth century or the beginning of the 14th, and reconstructed by William Burges in 1875, for the third Marques of Bute. There are three huge round towers, two of them rising from massive square bases. Between these stands the hall of the castle. There is a projecting gatehouse, which had to be rebuilt almost from the ground up. Even where these great buildings do not cover it, the motte is faced in masonry.
The restoration has the same opulence as that of Cardiff Castle – by the same architect and for the same owner; the elaborate restoration of the defensive arrangements need not be taken too seriously.
this was nice to visit,i was born in taffs well 1950, grew up in the area until 1954. we moved to liverpool ,my mams home town, but went back to taffs well every summer as my dads big sister was still living in taffs well.i left liverpool in 1978, moved to hawarden in north wales, still keeping an eye on my castle of my childhood.
That’s lovely!
I was just marveling at the fact that the ‘new bit’ was only 75 years old when you were born…. Then realised, with a bit of a shock, it was only a 100 when I was born!!!