CARDIFF CASTLE.

For the completion of the defence it was absolutely necessary that the great curtain should have been continued north of the keep. This portion, however, has been removed. It certainly was never bonded into the keep wall, but a corbel remaining on the north and outside of this may have been connected with it.

The lodgings, or habitable part of the castle, form a rectangular pile, 145 feet long by 55 feet deep, which occupies about two-sevenths of the western side of the court towards the southern end, and thus forms a part of the outer line of defence. This pile is composed of a tower, a central part or body, two main wings, and two lesser wings. All are built against the great Norman wall; the tower and lesser wings outside of it, the remainder inside.

The tower is a bold and well-proportioned octagon of 10 feet in the side, three faces of which project from the outer or west front, while the remainder is incorporated into, and now forms part of, the older Norman wall. It rises from a square base of 26 feet, passing by broaches into an octagon, to a height of 75 feet, or 12 feet above the contiguous buildings. It is boldly machicolated, having five corbel arches on each face, and a lofty parapet above, with two embrasures each way, the intervening merlons, eight in number, being pierced with a cruciform loop or oillet. The four outer or western angles, at the base of the parapet, are capped with bold grotesque heads of animals as gurgoyles.

The base is solid. About 6 feet above the ground it contains a rude chamber, 13 feet square, having a barrel vault, slightly pointed, with doorways, which seem to be original, in its northern and southern, or gable ends. The northern door, now blocked up, was, as late as the last century, a postern; and the chamber was a passage, and seems, from traces of a wall, to have contained a sort of lodge, subdivided into two cells.

Above this chamber is the cylindrical interior of the tower, 13 feet diameter, now a mere shell, occupied by a stair, and vaulted above. There are six windows in two tiers, the lower 38 feet from the ground. They are almost loops, small and square headed, but boldly splayed within, so as to give light and air, and showing the great thickness of the wall. Their arrangement proves the upper part of the tower to have been occupied by two chambers. It is difficult to speculate on the use of the lower part, which must always have been dark, and is rather large for a newel staircase. The present stairs and the groining above are very modern, though the latter may cover older work.

The shell is original and untouched. The material is lias ashlar, backed with rolled pebbles from the Taff. The quoins and battlements are chiefly of a white limestone, dressed with care. This tower gives character to the whole mass of the building. It has been compared with Guy’s tower at Warwick, which, though of smaller dimensions, it much resembles; and it is, no doubt, the work of the same nobleman or his wife, possibly of the same architect, and probably was built between the years 1425 and 1439, during which period Richard, Earl of Warwick, was lord of Cardiff.[3] Some of the prints of the last century show a turret rising out of the Cardiff tower; but this seems to have been a fiction, for no traces of such a turret are found, and in that position it would have been inconsistent with the internal arrangements of the tower.

Immediately behind the tower is the central part, or body of the building, about 70 feet by 30 feet, now composed of a dining-room and entrance lobby on the main floor; a basement, with cellars and offices below, and a range of bedrooms above. The tower is divided from this building by the older main wall of the castle, 10 feet thick and 40 feet high, which runs through the whole, and is much cut about and mutilated by later communications.