As promised in my last blog I am sharing about the castles and castle ruins my husband and I visited while in Wales England. To be completely honest with you we only went to one castle in Cardiff (that’s all there is there). All the ruins were about an hours drive from Cardiff. They were all in Wales, but only one in Cardiff. I would have titled this blog “Castles in Wales”, but in all honesty Castles in Cardiff sounds better.
With all that said, I can tell you that the Castle in Cardiff was nice. It wasn’t as big as I hoped, but it was nice none the less. We did have to pay to get in and we got to walk around the house where people would have lived. The rooms in that place were actually nice to look at. We also walked through the interior of the castle walls that were used as air raid shelters during World War II. It did rain that day, all day, but I think it was worth it.
The first ruin my husband took me to was Nunney Castle in Somerset, England which is also where my great grandma Lucy Lane was from. That alone had me excited. It was cool to see that this ruin had almost all of its walls up and some windows. No floors obviously, but to see it that much in tact was cool for me to see. I have gotten to the point now where I can tell where the fireplaces would have been. As well as stairs. So now I look for all of that.
The next castle ruin we drove to was Grosmont Castle. This castle had me impressed. All the outside walls were still standing. You could tell where the rooms and fireplaces were. There were some steps we could walk up to look down at the caste which had me wowed. And to top it all off the very top of one of the fireplaces was completely in tact. Now that is hard to come by! We liked this castle ruin so much that we got there when it was day light and nobody else was around so we sat together for awhile, holding each other on what would have been some steps. We sat there holding each other, listening to the wind and birds until it started to get dark. Grosmont Castle I think is now one of my favorite castle ruins. A place where my husband and I were able to make some fond memories with each other.
We had to walk quite the distance on part of a golf course to get to Pennard Castle. I have to say there wasn’t much there. Just two or three walls and they weren’t even all there, but the view of the beach was cool to see.
The last ruin we drove to was St Quentin’s Castle which really wasn’t worth driving to. There were basically some rocks and the gate keepers place, which some how was completely in tact. I am so thankful to my husband for driving me to all these castle ruins. I know there were some that we either couldn’t get to or we got to them, but they were chained up so people couldn’t go in them. Apparently they are considered dangerous for people to walk around. All I know is it was fun getting to see and walk around as many castle ruins as my husband could find.
You know every time I get to walk through those castles I wonder about the families who use to live in them. I wonder what they were like. I wonder if they had any idea that people like me would want to wonder through them in awe and try to imagine what these places would have looked like way back when. I do know if I could change the inside of my house to look like a ruin, I would probably do it in a second. My husband on the other hand says no to that. Oh well, getting to visit them is better than nothing.
Kathleen Smith is an indie Author, blogger and she has her own podcast Kathleen’s Korner. You can read or listen about her life in Brooklyn and Upstate NY . You can also either read or listen to her personal story of how she and her husband kept their marriage together through 3 miscarriages in Miscarriages My Story