CASTELL COCH, GLAMORGAN.
THE river Taff, from its origin under the Brecon Beacons, after a course of about 26 miles through the northern and mountain district of Glamorgan, escapes by a deep and narrow ravine across the last elevation, and rolls its course, unfettered, to the Bristol Channel.
The ridge which it thus finally cleaves, and which divides the hill country from the plain, is part of the great southern escarpment of the coal basin of Glamorgan, supported there by the mountain limestone rising from below, and in its turn reposing upon the old red sandstone, the denuded surface of which forms, under the later horizontal rocks and drift gravel, the basis of the plain. The escarpment, extending for many miles along the contiguous counties of Monmouth and Glamorgan, is traversed, in this immediate neighbourhood, by the three passes of the Ebbw, the Rhymny, and the Taff. The heights bounding the latter river, though in actual elevation below some other parts of the chain, produce a very striking effect, from the abruptness of their rise from the plain.
These heights, on each side of the pass, must always have been regarded by the inhabitants of the country as places of great security. On the right bank of the river, the huge lumpish sandstone mass of the Garth rises to 981 feet above the sea, and is crowned by two remarkable tumuli, well known as landmarks in the vale, and visible even from the distant shores of Somerset. The lower Garth, which rises to the front of the great Garth, opposite to Castell Coch, forms the right bank of the pass.
The elevation on the left bank, though lower, is more precipitous. It presents, in the lichen-stained crags about its summits, and the rich verdure which clothes its sides and base, all those features so well known to geologists as characterising the scenery of the mountain limestone.
Nature has rendered the west and south sides of this height— those exposed to any foe from beyond sea—nearly inaccessible. Across the north-eastern side, lines of circumvallation have been hewn out of the rock, the dimensions of which show the value attached to the place, as a fortress, by the Cymry.
There was reason in the choice. From hence the long ships of the Danish rovers could be seen while yet distant from the shore, and timely notice be given, and protection afforded to, the people of the plain, should the ravagers extend their sweep far inwards from the coast. A beacon fire upon the headland of Penarth—celebrated in Anglo-Norman verse for its ancient oak, and long marked by its white church—answered here, or on the opposite Garth, would be repeated from the summits of the distant mountains of Brecon and Caermarthen, and would at once spread the tidings of invasion over the whole of the southern coast.
The Normans, within a century and a half after the conquest of Glamorgan, had completed a chain of castles along the plain country, from Chepstow to Pembroke, and were only exposed to the invasions of the Welsh from the mountain tracts upon the north. To check these they threw up a number of fortresses, either upon, or within the verge of, the hill country, of which Morlais and Castell Coch may be cited as examples.
The site of the Cymric camp was far too difficult of access to allow of the ready transport into it of provisions, or munitions of war, or of a constant and rapid communication with the chief castle at Cardiff. Lower down the scarp, though still high above the plain, the Norman engineer selected a natural platform on the limestone rock, separated from the main scarp by a natural depression, and sufficiently removed from the summit to be out of the reach of any military engines with which the Welsh were likely to be acquainted, or which they were likely to be able to bring, with their forces, against the castle. There is an easy approach to this platform from the east, which probably communicated with the old road, called Roman, and no doubt Cymric, which leads direct from Cardiff to Rubina, and close upon which is the low circular mound, which was the site of a tower of the time of Henry III., at Whitchurch, and the Celtic tumulus of Twmpath. Upon this platform was erected the fortress which is here to be described.
Castell Coch, so called from the red tint of its materials, is, in general plan, a triangle, each angle being capped by a drum tower. Its general divisions are the south, east, and northern towers, the gate tower, the curtains and hall, and the outworks.
The platform occupied by the whole is about 200 yards long by 70 yards broad, and the principal works of the castle occupy its west end. The south face is, in part, precipitous, and from 20 feet to 30 feet high. The north face, towards the upper hill-side, is deepened into a formidable moat, and the east end was defended by a fosse, cut deeply across the rock, and beyond this by two towers, connected by a curtain wall.
The North Tower rises from a square base to a cylindrical superstructure, the north and south angles terminating in buttresses, each the half of a pyramid cut vertically and diagonally across, after a fashion very common in Welsh castles, and well seen in Marten’s tower at Chepstow. The cylinder is 40 feet in diameter. It contains three stories, of which the middle one is on a level with the inner court, or terre-plein, of the place.
The lower story may have been a cellar. It is vaulted, and has two great cross-springer ribs, and two windows opening high above the floor. A narrow passage, vaulted, with steps, leads into it from the court. Its internal diameter is 18 feet, its walls upwards of 10 feet thick. The windows were mere loopholes.
The middle story is also circular and vaulted, with similar ribs. Here, however, the windows open nearly on the level of the floor, though also loops. There is a fireplace, with a flue carried up in the wall. The flue is backed with stone. The entrance to this chamber is also from the court, and, on the east side of the vaulted passage, a gallery passes off in the thickness of the wall, and leads to what was a small garderobe, occupying a square projection on the east side of the tower, at its junction with the curtain. The general dimensions of this story, and the thickness of the walls, correspond with those of the room below.
The upper story contains one chamber, the south and east sides of which are flat, the rest circular. Here are no less than three fireplaces, each of large dimensions, with funnels in the thickness of the wall. It contains also two small recesses, one a sort of sink, and has two windows. There are also two doors, one, on the south side, opening upon the roof and ramparts of the hall and west front, the other, eastwards, leading to the ramparts of the great or northern curtain. Access to this chamber, from below, seems to have been obtained by an exterior stair between the tower and the hall. This story, within, is about 26 feet mean diameter, and the walls vary from 2 feet 3 inches to 4 feet thick. It was roofed flat, with timber, and above were ramparts and a parapet, probably reached by means of a trap-door in the roof. It was evidently the kitchen, here, as at Morlais and Coningsburgh, placed in an upper floor.
This tower is the most perfect of the whole, and in tolerable preservation, although the lower chamber is half full of rubbish; the small apartment connected with the middle story is broken down, and the roof and ramparts are wanting on the summit. This tower, however, is evidently the type of, and has served in the present instance as a clue to, the original plan of the others.
The South Tower corresponded nearly to the last, and, like it, appears to have contained three chambers, and at its junction with the west curtain, a square projection, containing in the middle story a small garderobe, and in the upper, probably a communication with the battlements of the hall. The lower chamber is entered by a vaulted passage, down steps, from the courtyard. The middle or main chamber probably was entered on the level, by a passage from the courtyard, and a mural gallery seems to have led from this passage to the window or opening in the south end of the hall. The upper chamber was accessible from the hall battlements, as it probably also was from those of the gateway curtain. It is uncertain whether this tower rose from a square base—probably it did. Its upper part was cylindrical, 40 feet diameter. The walls are 8 feet thick, and the chambers do not appear to have been vaulted. This tower is in a ruined state. The two outer thirds of its circumference have been blown away by a mine, but the part connected with the hall, including a door below, two windows in the lower and middle story, and the small chamber in the wall, remain tolerably perfect, and remove all doubts as to the original elevation and particulars of the whole.
The East Tower corresponds in altitude and general arrangements to the other two, like them containing three stories. It is cylindrical from the base, and 40 feet diameter; but, towards the courtyard, it presents a flat face, with two shoulders projecting at its junction with its curtains. Like the other towers, it has a square projection for a small chamber, here found at its junction outside with the great or northern curtain. The lower story, like those of the other towers, is below the level of the court, but instead of being entered directly by a distinct staircase, a gallery branches off from the passage to the middle chamber, and descends, winding in the thickness of the wall, to a vaulted prison below. This lower chamber is filled up, but its existence is evident enough, and the staircase is seen through a great rent in the wall. The diameter is 18 feet 4 inches, and the thickness of the wall 10 feet 10 inches.
The first floor is entered by a passage from the court, on a level. This chamber had two loops. There is no fireplace, and no trace of a vault, although the walls are above 10 feet thick. On either hand, opening out of the passage leading to this chamber, are galleries in the wall, that on the right descending to the chamber below, that on the left running on a level, to open into a small chamber in the square projection between the tower and the great curtain. Here seems to have been the well. The upper chamber appears to have been entered from the ramparts by a long pointed doorway in the gorge; and over the lower door, leading from this, on the right, a passage leads to a spiral stair in the wall, which evidently gave access to the battlements of the tower. This tower has been rent asunder by a central explosion, but the outer part has only shifted a little.
The Hall stands upon a vaulted chamber, now filled up with rubbish. It occupies the space between the north and south towers, which it connects, its outer wall forming the curtain between them. It is rectangular, 30 feet 8 inches by 17 feet 8 inches, vaulted, with a pointed arch, and having its outer wall 7 feet, and its inner wall 6 feet, thick. In the former are three loops, splayed towards the interior, and having pointed heads. They are high above the base of the wall, and command a fine view. The door was near the north end of the opposite side, and possibly there may have been a fireplace on the same side with the door. At the south end is a window, which opens into a sort of gallery in the south tower.
Above the vaulted roof was, probably, a platform, with a low battlement towards the court, and a high one towards the exterior of the castle. This platform communicated with the north and south towers directly, and with the court by a narrow stair, already noticed as leading to the upper chamber of the north tower. The hall is now much mutilated, the vault and part of the east wall being destroyed.
The great curtain is a large irregular segment of a circle, about 80 feet exterior face, and with a chord of about 60 feet. It originally was a wall 3 feet thick, which appears to have been found of insufficient breadth for the use of military engines on the north and north-east battlements, upon these, the weakest sides of the fortress; wherefore a parallel wall was built within and against it, 6 feet thick, extending the whole way from the north to the east tower. The old wall contains seven loops at the courtyard level, and to preserve these an arch, 6 feet diameter, is turned in the new work, opposite to each. Above, there is, of course, a rampart walk of ample width, entered from the tower at either end. The exterior of this wall, below the level of the court, is strengthened by a stone facing, forming the scarp of its moat. This curtain remains tolerably perfect. There is a breach near its junction with the north tower, and the new and inner wall is wanting opposite to the four loops, though traces of it are discernible in the mortar upon the old wall.
The Gatehouse Curtain is much less perfect. It appears to have been slightly convex in plan towards the exterior, and about 28 feet in length between the south and east towers, from both of which its ramparts were, no doubt, entered. It is about 5 feet thick. One loop remains, about 6 feet above the courtyard level, which could only have been used by means of a platform, perhaps of timber. Twenty-one feet from its junction with the east tower, a small half-round tower seems to have projected from the curtain, serving, no doubt, to defend the gateway, which seems to have lain between this and the south tower, and probably consisted in a simple archway and passage, with a portcullis and doors. That the entrance was here, and between these towers, is certain from the causeway leading to it, but the gate-tower, and most of the curtain, are utterly gone.
Thus much of the castle. We next reach the Outworks.
The south and north tower, and the hall curtain, needed no exterior defence. They rise from a very steep bank, and their foundations are of scarped rock and solid masonry. They are quite unassailable from below. The other two sides are more exposed. In front of the south tower is the commencement of the moat, broken by a causeway opposite to the inner gateway, and leading from it to the outer court. Beyond the causeway the moat deepens, and is carried round the east tower and great curtain, steep and deep, and hewn in the rock, so as to render this, the naturally weaker side, very strong. The moat, which must always have been dry, ends, opposite to the north tower, in a curious excavation, resembling a water-tank, which, however, it could scarcely have been.
The outer court of the castle occupies the remainder or east end of the natural platform. Its dimensions are about 100 feet long by 40 feet wide. Its southern side, a continuation of the line of the same face of the castle, was defended by a precipice, partly natural, partly scarped by art, though now broken down and filled up. There are no traces of a wall on this side, but probably there was a parapet.
The opposite, north, or landward, side, is defended by a branch from the moat, which, after being interrupted and traversed by a causeway, sweeps round the east end of the works, and terminates in a deep and broad excavation, which is carried to the brink of the cliff, and thus defends also the east end of this outer court.
The west end of the platform, or that towards the castle, is cut off from that building by its proper moat, traversed, as already mentioned, by the causeway leading to the inner gateway. There is no evidence of any walled defence to this court, and yet, without such, the moat on the land side would scarcely have been sufficient to delay an enemy, so as to expose him to the fire from the east tower and gateway curtain, upon which the defence of this side depended.
As the principal object was to command the regular approach from the eastward, the defences were prolonged in this direction. Outside, and on the counterscarp of the moat of the outer court, and 6 feet from the edge of the south precipice, there are traces of a tower, about 30 feet diameter, with what may have been a sort of buttress on its southern side, extending to the precipice. Opposite, on its northern side, and at its junction with a lower curtain, is what appears to have been a well-stair, or the foundation of a distinct turret. There is no moat to the east of the tower, but the ground falls in a natural scarp.
This Lower Curtain, indicated, like the towers, by a mound of earth only, sweeps round, so as to cover the counterscarp of the outer moat, and ends in the roadway tower, about 40 feet diameter, the foundations of which are very distinct, and which must have completely commanded the approach, at a point much in advance of, and below, the outer causeway and the eastern tower. The regular approach, it is clear, lay from the east, and between the precipitous height crowned by the old Cymric camp and the level platform of the castle, and, approaching it by the side least strongly defended by nature, would, at 150 yards from the body of the place, be flanked by the fire of the lower tower, then of the lower curtain, and then of the roadway tower. Supposing these silenced, and the outer causeway reached, the besieger came directly below the east tower, and a part of its adjacent curtains; and as he crossed the outer court, and reached the second causeway, he would be opposed by a fire from the east and south towers, their curtain, and the gateway tower.
Even if the place were surprised and entered, each of the three towers, and the platform of the hall, admitted of being defended for a few hours, until aid had been signalled for, and sent from Cardiff. No doubt, before brave men, all defences fail; and the Welsh, who certainly were not wanting in courage, did, according to tradition, more than once take this castle, probably by surprise and escalade; nevertheless, it was a very strong fortress, both by nature and art, and must have been a sore thorn in the side of the mountaineers of Glamorgan.
The present condition of each part of the castle has already been described. It may be added, generally, that the whole is very thickly grown over with brushwood and weeds, so much so that it is difficult to make out the details of the plan of the building. Although no ornaments remain, yet it is clear from the general plan, and from the doorways, that no part of the castle is in the Norman style. It is, probably, Early English, and may very well be of the reign of Henry III., and probably a little earlier than Caerphilly.
Here and there, especially in the outer court, are some handsome Scotch firs, and a number of venerable beeches, the peculiar green of whose foliage marks, from a great distance, the line of the old approach. These, of course, with the wood clothing the hill side, and the ivy upon the walls and towers, should be left untouched; but it is much to be wished that the castle itself, and the works of the Cymric camp above, were cleared of timber and underwood, and a little care taken to encourage fair greensward in their stead.
This castle has descended with the rest of the De Clare estates, and is now the property of the Marquis of Bute.
There are various traditions concerning it, but a great deficiency of recorded information. Being the key of the upper country, it must have witnessed many an inburst of the native Welsh, from the Norman Conquest to the days of Owen Glendower, who is supposed to have descended by this pass when he burned the episcopal palace of Llandaff, and ravaged Cardiff.
Since this account was written the castle has been cleared of rubbish, and completely restored, so as to be again habitable. A well has been discovered in one of the towers, and cleared out, as has also been a very strong dungeon. The restoration is very complete indeed, in excellent taste, and in strict accordance with what has been ascertained of the original structure.