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Slice of cake and tea set in the Castell Coch tea room

The Castell Coch Tea Room

If you’ve visited Castell Coch recently, you may have seen the beautifully re-designed tea room. The transformation is part of a range of developments to enhance the visitor experience at Cardiff’s fairytale castle. Jane Ormsby Gore and Becky Wade of JR Design completed the work and Jane describes it as, “A balance of inspiration from the Victorian decoration of the …

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Postcard featuring a photo of a girl playing piano in the kitchen of Castell Coch

Postcards of Castell Coch – Part 1

For this first instalment of “Postcards of Castell Coch“, I present a favourite of mine. The photo on the postcard shows a young girl playing the piano in the kitchen. This was one of my first postcard purchases and I was confused why a postcard would feature such a personal scene. I always thought postcards …

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Acoustic guitarist in kitchen at Castell Coch

Folli Fest 2017

70 acts performed over 5 stages in the amazing surroundings of Castell Coch on Friday night. Billed as a “Youth takeover of Cardiff’s fairytale castle”, Folli Fest was the first event of its kind to take place in the castle. I went along to experience this unique evening and was blown away by the talent on stage …

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Copper halberd with five rivet-holes and central mid-rib

The Castell Coch Hoard

During the Festival of Archaeology, all issues of British Archaeology Magazine are free to view. I did some digging and unearthed an interesting find. In the village of Tongwynlais, just 150 metres north west of Castell Coch and 20cm below the forest floor, a cache of copper weapons lay buried for 4,000 years. This article was originally published …

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Castell Coch at sunset, 2013

Cadw Celebrates 125 Years of Castell Coch

Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service, have released a selection of iconic images to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the completion of Castell Coch. The images have been released in partnership with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and span multiple decades, from the castle’s completion in 1891 up to the present day. …

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Scaffolding on Castell Coch

Chimney Conservation Tour

Extensive conservation work was carried out at Castell Coch in the summer of 2018. Cadw had been monitoring water damage for a number of years and efforts to fix the problem were unsuccessful. After further surveys highlighted weaknesses in the chimney stacks, it was decided that significant conservation work was required. Cadw offered tours of …

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Three sculptures of parrot headed characters by Laura Ford in Castell Coch

Discovering the Squatters at Castell Coch

A collection of fantastical creatures have taken over the castle in a new exhibit at Castell Coch. The sculptures, by acclaimed artist Laura Ford, are presented by TEN. and Cadw. Dafydd Elis-Thomas AM, the Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism opened the exhibit last week at a special preview event. Cat Gardiner, the curator of TEN. described working …

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A dark and spooky edited photo of Castell Coch

The Ghosts of Castell Coch

Castell Coch is famous for its ghost stories, but how many do you know? Here are two tales that might make you think about visiting the castle after dark again. Excerpts from “Turn of the Century Ton” by Roger Brown. This article was originally published on Tongwynlais.com. The Story of Dame Griffith Her son, while exploring …

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Lego model of Castell Coch

A Lego Fairytale

I was watching YouTube back in 2014 and stumbled across a video of a Lego fair in America. There was a guy being interviewed about a Lego model he’d built that was based on a real German castle. I was always looking for interesting topics to write about so I did some digging and found …

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