Tongwynlais, Castell Coch c.1960

Photo ref: T188003

More about this scene

Castell Coch has featured in a number of films, both for screen and television. The present building dates from 1870; it is a romantic reconstruction of a medieval fortress designed by William Burges for John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, Third Marquess of Bute. Of the two previous castles on the site, the first was a short-lived motte and bailey erected when the Normans pushed into the Cardiff area. The second was a small, well-designed de Clare stronghold, which seems to have lasted only a couple of hundred years before being abandoned and deliberately destroyed.