Cornwall to Cardiff

This morning we packed up again and headed back north this time to Cardiff. We headed off straight after breakfast and thought we would arrive by just after lunchtime. After leaving the Cornwall narrow country lanes we were mainly on the free way, we were pretty pleased with our decision to head to Cornwall on this day (previously we had planned to do it in reverse which would of had us travelling into Cornwall on the Saturday of the bank holiday weekend) as we could see the traffic was grid locked heading south, however the smiles on our faces soon disappeared not long after as we ourselves ended up in the midst of traffic, instead of a 3 hr drive it became a four hour with the last hour the car travelling at no more than 10miles per hour.

We discovered the reason as we entered Cardiff, it was their pride weekend and everyone was heading to the city .  But we managed to get through the city pretty easily and found our hotel / car park with no problems.

Taking the opportunity to see something we headed straight out and went to 

Cardiff Castle

The first fortress on this site was Roman and was believed to Have been built in about 50AD, however excavations in the 70's indicate that that the roman fort would undergo another three transformations before the romans abandoned it in the 5th century AD. 

  

After years of abandonment the Normans took possession of the fort , they concentrated their work mainly on the western side of the fort creating a 40 feet high mound, surrounded by a moat, on which they  probably built a wooden stockade to protect the buildings inside.

The building above is located where the Normans had built there stockade.

As the years progressed the castle passed from family to family including the Neville's who included the earl of Warwick whom  was known as the "Kingmaker," it passed into the Tudor family's hands when Henry (7th) Tudor bequeathed it to his Uncle Jasper Tudor , after Jaspers death it passed to the crown. 

 

Eventually in 1776 it passed into the Bute family and they created the Cardiff castle we see today.

In 1865 Lord Bute invited architect William Burges to report on the state of the castle, together over the next sixteen years the transformed the earlier castle into the neogothic palace. It truely was very glamorous, I can't possibly post all the pictures on here but two of the rooms we seen were just  spectacular.  There also was a fabulous library which includes many rare volumes especially in relation to language as Lord Bute was a keen linguist. 

   

After touring the palace we entered into the walls of the castle , during World War Two the walls of the castle were used as an air raid shelter.  I have to say walking through these walls with the sounds of planes and bombs being dropped was very moving and probably for the first time I think I really  understood how scary it would have been during that time. 

They had beds set up in the corridors and periodically they had recreated areas that would have provided food to the people sheltering with  in the walls.

After leaving the castle we wandered around the streets to have a bit of a look at Cardiff , mind you it  was absolutely crazy because of the pride festival, but it was great to see so much support by the local community with the majority of shops and businesses displaying the rainbow flag.

rydych iechyd a hapusrwydd

(Wishing you good health in Welsh)

Googy Girl