Castell Coch

History

A Norman motte was raised on the site after 1081 to guard the route along the River Taff into Cardiff. Gilbert de Clare built a stone castle here between 1267 and 1277, which may have been destroyed during the Welsh rebellion of 1314 and stood ruined for centuries afterwards. The Bute family acquired the site in 1760 through a marriage settlement, and John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, inherited it in 1848 and commissioned Burges to rebuild it as a summer retreat. His grandson, the 5th Marquess, placed the castle into state care in 1950.

Architecture

Burges rebuilt the castle between 1875 and 1891 in a High Victorian Gothic Revival style, working from the surviving medieval remains beneath. He died in 1881 before the interior was complete, and his design team finished the decorative schemes by 1891.

Worth knowing

The 3rd Marquess of Bute, one of the wealthiest men in Victorian Britain, also reintroduced commercial vineyard production to the site, and wine made from grapes grown below the castle walls continued until the First World War.