Castell Coch - Cardiff, Glamorgan
This mysterious location has a long and torrid history dating back to the 13th Century
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Join the Haunted Happenings team as we enter the rarely investigated Castell Coch. This mysterious location is set high above Cardiff and has a long and torrid history dating back to the 13th Century . When you walk around this castle you are immediately transported back to a bygone age and the fascination of its past is really brought to life. A darker side to Castell Coch is evident as you plunge into the cold dark dungeon. With so many areas and so many levels of history who knows what we will encounter as we spend the night in this mysterious castle
Ghosts of Castell Coch
Do not be fooled by the wonderous exterior of Castle Coch as this really does belie its barbaric history. With dark dungeons and extremely active areas Castell Coch really is a unique location in so many ways and is a ghost hunters paradise. Some of the ghostly figures that have been seen here are dark and sinister with people feeling that they are being watched with unseeing eyes.
The surrounding beech woods contain rare plant species and unusual geological features and are protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Join Haunted Happenings at the rarely investigated Castell Coch (The Red Castle) in South Wales. Castell Coch cannot be compared to any other Castle we have ever been to. Nestled on a wooded hillside high above Cardiff. This fairytale Castle has a much darker side which is evident with areas of punishment, and the dungeon suggests that there were also times of imprisonment. During our ghost hunt at Castell Coch we hope to discover the cause of the hauntings of this majestic location. The dungeon areas is very active and cries have been heard wailing from the vent on the roof.
The Great Hall is always scaring people, even in the day time when taps and bangs are constantly being heard and people are feeling that they have been touched. The chapel is peaceful but when in there it always feels as if you are being watched by hidden eyes. This really is a great ghost hunting location and one on the must-do list.
History of Castell Coch
Castell Coch is a romantic and majestic building perched on the hillside of Cardiff in Wales. It was built in the 1870\'s for the 3rd Marquess of Bute to a design by William Burges and has the most exquisite interior decoration based on a fascination of the Middle Ages. The history of Castell Coch is fascinating as is the whole ambience of this amazing location. It is unique and has an appearance that allows you to think that you have seen it many times before but mainly in fairy tales.
Lord Bute wanted to create a fabulous vision of the Middle Ages and raise a new fortress on the ruined foundations of the Castle and in the summer of 1875 work began in earnest to create his vision. Burges died unexpectedly in 1881 and it was left to his team of assistants and craftsmen to interpret his vision and complete the fantastic decorative ideas for the decor of the Castle using local medieval precedents.
The original Castle was thought to have been founded by a Welsh Lord in c 1240 -1265 and had a round tower keep at the South Westerly corner of a small D-shaped courtyard with a hall on either side. This was built with rough rubble sandstone from which the building took the name of Castell Coch or \'Red Castle\'. The appearance of Castle Coch disguises the fact that it is thought to have been built on the remains of a genuine 13th Century Castle.
There is a darker side to Castell Coch though which is evident by the fact that it holds areas of punishment and by the sheer fact that it has a dungeon suggests that there were also episodes of torture. Putting this together with the fact that it has been built upon foundations used in the Middle Ages allows you to comprehend the types of suffering that would have occurred here. Many battles were fought on the land and so much bloodshed would have been spilt.
Haunted Happenings ghost hunt at Castell Coch hopes to unravel some of the paranormal activity that has been heard and felt here in recent years and attempt to work out the layers of history that these spirits belong to. It must be said that there is also a pleasant atmosphere in some of the rooms, with the feeling that there are peaceful entities residing there. However, the dungeon itself is extremely daunting and because it leads off from a narrow staircase with no light or window it must have been hell for all those forgotten souls that were placed there.
Castell Coch is like no other Castle that Haunted Happenings have ever investigated. It is like a contradiction in terms just being there. With so much love and care placed into the building as it stands now and yet knowing that the foundations have seen so much history dating back to medieval times and beyond where times were life was often barbaric and survival was everything is difficult to comprehend
Additional History of Castell Coch
Castell Coch or the Red Castle, is a 19th-century Gothic Revival castle built above the village of Tongwynlais in South Wales. The first castle on the site was built by the Normans after 1081, to protect the newly conquered town of Cardiff and control the route along the Taff Gorge. Abandoned shortly afterwards, the castle\'s earth motte was reused by Gilbert de Clare as the basis for a new stone fortification, which he built between 1267 and 1277 to control his freshly annexed Welsh lands. This castle was probably destroyed in the native Welsh rebellion of 1314. In 1760, the castle ruins were acquired by the Marquises of Bute as part of a marriage settlement that brought the family vast estates in South Wales.
John Crichton-Stuart, the 3rd Marquis of Bute, inherited the castle in 1848. One of Britain\'s wealthiest men, with interests in architecture and antiquarian studies, he employed the architect William Burges to reconstruct the castle, \"as a country residence for occasional occupation in the summer\", using the medieval remains as a basis for the design. Burges rebuilt the outside of the castle between 1875 and 1879, before turning to the interior; he died in 1881 and the work was not finished by Burges\'s remaining team until 1891. Bute reintroduced commercial viticulture into Britain, planting a vineyard just below the castle, and wine production continued until the First World War. The Marquis made little use of his new retreat and in 1950 his grandson, the 5th Marquis of Bute, placed it into the care of the state. It is now controlled by the Welsh heritage agency Cadw.
Castell Coch\'s external features and the High Victorian interiors led the historian David McLees to describe it as \"one of the greatest Victorian triumphs of architectural composition.\" The exterior, based on 19th-century studies by the antiquarian George Clark, is relatively authentic in style, although its three stone towers were adapted by Burges to present a dramatic silhouette, closer in design to European castles such as Chillon than native British fortifications. The interiors were elaborately decorated, with specially designed furniture and fittings; the designs include extensive use of symbolism drawing on classical and legendary themes. Joseph Mordaunt Crook wrote that the castle represented \"the learned dream world of a great patron and his favourite architect, recreating from a heap of rubble a fairy-tale castle which seems almost to have materialised from the margins of a medieval manuscript.\"
