The Tour of Wales

Photo: Paul Bence,

Ogmore castle was probably built by Robert fitz Hamon or his followers in the late 11th century to guard the strategically important confluence of the Ogmore river with the Ewenny.

I have resolved the problem with the Google map on the castles of Wales page. All the castles are now mapped on the google map interface, and I shall add in the remainder of the castles on this page over the next few weeks.

Drupal, it seems, has plenty of mapping functionality available. Having written the Castles of Wales page largely by hand, I find that there are facilities for geocoding pages. I'll experiment with the prehistory pages next, to geocode these onto a Google map.

Let me know what you think.

I have now added Aberystwyth, Carreg Cennen and Cardiff castles to the Castles menu, with some noew photos too.

A few more and all the original castles from the gallery will be transformed into the new site and I can start on castles that I have not yet touched. I will also start on the replacement "Age of Castles" page, with a google maps interface.

I think this approach is right and should be extended elsewhere in the gallery. I'll probably start on prehistory after Castles, as there are so many interesting prehistoric sites to cover in Wales, and so little space on a single web page.

Photo: Oliver Whiteside,

First built in 1081 at the instigation of William the Conqueror himself, this castle was built atop an earlier Roman Fortress. The site secured the lowest crossing of the river Taff and had both good land and sea communications.

Built in 1277 by Edward 1st, Aberystwyth Castle is probably the youngest castle in Dyfed. Records of the building work are still extant and the cost of the building was over 4000 pounds. Aberystwyth is a fine example of a concentric castle.

First captured before it was even finished, it was then burned by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. It was recaptured and remained mostly in English hands until it was taken by Owain Glyndwr in the Welsh uprisings. The rebellion petered out and it returned to English hands. In the Civil War it was pressed into action once more for the royalists, and when Cromwell finally took it he had it blown up.

There are many good photos out there. On Flickr you can find just about anything you want, but sorting the good from the bad, knowing what you want and finding an image that is not "all rights reserved" can be a problem.

But with Creative Commons share alike licenses, it is possible to use good photography on sites such as this one.

When I started the site, I took all the photos. There are two problems with this: I am a photo hobbyist, but a long way from a professional, and my work shows this. Also it means that I can only show pictures of places I visit. And if the day was grey an miserable, the photos are either moody or else they are boring. Usually the latter :(

Photo: Robert Emperley,

This curiously angular castle was again built by Edward I. The castle is a masterpiece of engineering and castle design and is still in excellent repair.