Well hello and welcome to places in Wales episode 6 and today we are at
Kidwelly Castle in Carmarthenshire West Wales. Not only is a 12th-century castle
but you may recognize it from the opening scenes of Monty Python and the
Holy Grail. Let's get in the mood. Come on Patsy!
Well anyway if you were attacking the castle and you managed to breach the
gates and he entered the outer ward here you came in, then you were confronted
with the inner ward and the four towers. You couldn't break through there, you
couldn't really get back out, the way you came in and above you, from all the
defences, the arrows would be coming, raining in, so this became a killing zone.
It was a hard place to conquer but now you can get in for £4.50
'I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father
smelt of elderberries.' OK, that's enough messing around,
time for some facts. The castle was established in the 12th century as a
simple ringwork castle with a wooden structure embankments and ditches. It was
under constant attack from the Welsh tribes around the area and it was
captured in 1159 by Lord Rees, one of the Welsh princes, however four decades
later the Normans were back in charge and by the twelve 80s the powerful
Marcher Lords were in charge and they're the ones that first constructed the
stone castle the remnants of what we see today.
I don't think you could work here if you were fat - look at this corridor.
What is good about this castle is how much access you've got to the buildings
and the towers. In most castles they're sealed off with gates but here you can
climb the towers you can climb the spiral staircases it's really good. So
we're on top of the towers now and they've got great views over towards the
estuary and out to sea.
So that was that quick look around Kidwelly Castle in Carmarthenshire West
Wales so it's definitely worth coming to see. Not only if you're a Monty Python
fan but if you just like a bit of history as well and like I mentioned
earlier it's really good if you want to get in the buildings and climb the
towers and things like that. It's only four pounds four pounds twenty
to get in. I mentioned £4.50 at the moment it's
£4.20, it's open all year round except Christmas so we'll see you there.