Morlais Castle is a 13th century castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

 located above the Taff Gorge near the town of Merthyr Tydfil

Merthyr Tydfil

Merthyr Tydfil is a town in Wales, with a population of about 30,000. Although once the largest town in Wales, it is now ranked as the 15th largest urban area in Wales. It also gives its name to a county borough, which has a population of around 55,000. It is located in the historic county of...

 in Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

.

Not much remains today of the castle first begun by Gilbert de Clare, 3rd Earl of Gloucester on land claimed by Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford

Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford

Humphrey de Bohun , 3rd Earl of Hereford and 2nd Earl of Essex, was an English nobleman known primarily for his opposition to King Edward I over the Confirmatio Cartarum. He was also an active participant in the Welsh Wars and maintained for several years a private feud with the earl of Gloucester...

. Warfare broke out between the Earls in 1290 and they were severely admonished and fined by King Edward I of England

Edward I of England

Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...

, who had to march down from North Wales

North Wales

North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...

 to intervene. The castle was captured by Madog ap Llywelyn

Madog ap Llywelyn

Madog ap Llywelyn, or Prince Madoc, was from a junior branch of the House of Aberffraw and a distant relation of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last recognised native Prince of Wales.-Lineage:...

in 1294. The castle is believed to have never been fully completed, and the location was too remote and exposed to serve as a residence. The Bucks' engraving of 1741, however, shows that fragments of the walls then still stood high.

Description

The castle comprised a triangular inner ward with sides about 45m long and an inner bailey 60m wide. The inner ward had a round keep 17m in diameter at the north corner, a D-shaped tower with a staircase on the north side at the SE corner, and a similar tower projected from the south wall. Between the later two was the gateway. On the west side was a freestanding building about 25m long. It was joined to the south tower by an almost square building. In front of the south tower is a deep pit, presumably the cistern. The outer ward has no towers on the west side, but there is a D-shaped tower at the south-east corner. The later has a rib-vaulted basement with a central pier and a sharply pointed doorway. Against the east curtain was a large and thickly walled building over 20m long, and on the west is a smaller building. Little remains today, though, with only one room still intact in what would have been the bottom of the main keep, and small walls around the castle give us an idea of where it once stood. The moat stretches around most of the castle, although one side has vanished; this may be because of the lime quarry located there.

External links

• Castles of Wales: Morlais Castle
• Old Merthyr Tydfil: Morlais Castle - Historical Photographs of Morlais Castle.
• Morlais Castle Golf Club