No.116 – Caerphilly Castle not Chepstow Castle

Chepstow photo (No.116) proved elusive. I walked all over the place and could not find anywhere where there was a match. Many nooks and crannies looked similar but definitely not the same. I asked a custodian and she agreed about the similarity but could only suggest that the photo was taken at some other ruin nearby. Unfortunately (or fortunately for our heritage) there are an awful lot of such places in the Welsh borders and it would take forever to check them all. I’m prepared to bet that the building in 116 is of a very similar date – it’s Norman and very early (C11th-12th) – but it looks as though Slim took this somewhere else and mis-labelled it. There’s still some room for me to be wrong as the modern visitors’ entrance hall may be obscuring the vital part so I won’t give up just yet. I’m coming to the conclusion that Slim had very good taste as the places he visited are definitely worthwhile.

Rick Turner, Inspector of Ancient Monuments, Cadw Inspectorate,
Welsh Assembly Government, (28/07/08): “I can confidently say that it is not Chepstow Castle.” He later identified the photo as follows: “the South-West Tower of the Inner Ward of Caerphilly Castle before it was restored in the 1930s, viewed from the west.” – e-mail 28th Aug. 2008, “Records show that work on this tower started in 1935 and was finished in 1937” – e-mail 29th Aug. 2008”

Caerphilly is quite a few miles deeper into Wales than Chepstow, suggesting a longer trip for our man than I’d originally imagined but it’s still in the same general area. As usual I find it odd that Slim took this photo but not one of the more remarkable features which is a dramatically leaning tower! I guess this photo was the only one to come out well enough!