Unearthing city’s forgotten castle

AS YOU drive out of Cardiff on the A469 towards Caerphilly up the Thornhill Road, you leave the city behind and wind your way to Caerphilly Mountain.

Before you reach it you will spot the Travellers Rest pub on the right. This beautiful thatched pub has a nice little beer garden as well as an extensive car park.

Park your car, and instead of heading inside for a pint, make your way through the trees behind the pub. As you pick your way along the path there is nothing to suggest you are about to stumble upon the ruins of Cardiff’s second castle – Morgraig.

Everyone knows about Cardiff Castle, a hotchpotch of different eras crammed together. What most people don’t know about is Morgraig Castle.

And as you encounter it, you walk in the footsteps of Victorian archaeologist John Ward, of Cardiff Museum.

People from that era loved exploration and adventure.

But Ward had heard rumours about an ancient fort in the hills and had seen strange rectangular shapes on old maps, so he led a team to find it in 1895. The site of Morgraig Castle on the crest of Graig Llanishen ridge to the north of Cardiff and, right, an artist’s impression of the castle

They discovered the remains of Morgraig on the escarpment of Craig Llanishen in what is now part of Caerphilly. It was the perfect location for a castle with a high vantage point overlooking Cardiff.

Aerial photos from Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of Wales show just how daunting it could have been to approach.

Ward then led excavation of the castle and discovered that it was built some time after 1243, but before 1267.

Interestingly, there was no evidence of roofing materials or evidence of internal buildings which suggest that Morgraig Castle (Castell Morgraig) was never actually finished.

So, who did the castle belong to? Ever since it was discovered, there has been a great debate raging around the castle.

The debate centres on who built it. Was it the Welsh Lord of Senghennydd or was it the English Marcher Lord Gilbert de Clare?

Some people see the ruins as a last Welsh fortress again English encroachment on Welsh lands, whereas others see it as being built by the English lords to solidify their hold on this part of South Wales.

There are some things that point to English construction.

The theory which was put forward by Jack Spurgeon and Cadw in the 1990s was that the carved stone used was Sutton stone (a whitish rock with flecks of shiny quartz), which was quarried in the Vale of Glamorgan in the Middle Ages.

This stone came from a single very isolated quarry near Ogmore and Southerndown, which was controlled by the de Clare family. Therefore the Welsh lord of Senghennydd would never have had access to it.

However, in 2009 the Gelligaer Historical Society suggested that the castle keep and plain entrance both had features associated with Welsh castle building and that there were actually cordial relations between the Lord of Senghennydd and the de Clares around that time.

But why was the castle abandoned? It has been suggested that it’s because it had lost its strategic importance to de Clare and some of the stone was then used to build Caerphilly Castle.

Either way, this scheduled monument and grade 2 listed building are a fascinating and hidden window into Wales’ past.

Reporter