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Introduction

Ruperra Castle was built by Sir Thomas Morgan in 1626, one of the most powerful men in Wales at that
time, as steward to the Earl of Pembroke. As Surveyor of the Wood to King James I, he had been knighted
in 1623. The revenue from these occupations, together with a favourable marriage, enabled him to complete
the building of his house at Ruperra,

When King Charles visited Ruperra in 1645 he stayed from 26th -29th July, longer than at Tredegar House
or Llancaiach Fawr prominent houses of lower Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire, which seems to cement
the fact of its luxury. He was in the area gathering support after his defeat at the Battle of Naseby. Sir
Thomas' grandson, was host on this occasion and the royal coat of arms was added to the decoration on the
South Porch. The present public footpath from the Rudry approach to the Castle is still known as the 'King's
Drive,' (fig.2)

English architecture of this period has been called Renaissance, a style which was also beginning to make
headway in many of the lower Welsh counties. The term is a confusing one, for the period saw the birth of
as style to a considerable extent independent of, an even hostile to, the classical architecture of the
Continent; it drew its strength from native Gothic roots. The Elizabethans themselves reveal almost nothing
about their own buildings or the men who built them. Apart from drawings made by masons and surveyors
only a handful of contemporary illustrations of Elizabethan and later Jacobean houses survive to this day.

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FIG .1

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FIG .2

In 1576 du Cerceau published his Plus excellent bastiments de France, a magnificent series of engravings of
the most important buildings of the time, England was to have nothing anywhere near approaching this until
Britannia Illustrata, two volumes of country-house
country house views by Kip and Knyff, appeared in 1705 and 1715.

Written or printed comments and description are nearly as rare, and when they do occur are often very
meagre. Topographers of the time would pay more attention to the family trees of the gentry than their
houses. Except when letters to or fromrom the actual artificers
artificers or surveyors survive, it is very seldom than one
finds references to buildings in late Elizabethan correspondence;
correspondence; which seems to explain the anonymity of
the architect who worked on Ruperra, before it was refurbished by Thomas Hardwicke in 1785 after
Ruperras first fire left it destroyed.

Historical Context: Elizabethan and Jacobean Pageantry and the ‘Sham-Castle’

To understand the architectural significance of Ruperra it is valuable to look at the significance of the
Elizabethan Period of which the castle lends its style. It was a period which, through accomplishments had
fuelled the beginning of over 500 years of British political and military dominance over its enemies, and
began its conquest of the ‘new world.’ After the failed invasion
ion and defeat of the Spanish Armada sent by

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King Phillip II in 1588 England entered a short era of national pride .The efflorescence of this national pride
and consciousness resulted naturally enough in an increasing interest in national history. The great
Elizabethan series of history plays starts in the 1580’s and get’s fully under way in the 1590’s.
Shakespeare’s Henry V with all its romance and nationalism was probably written in 1599. In 1595 Thomas
Daniel published the first five books of his historical epic, The Civile Wars; in the following year Micheal
Drayton published a similar work Mortimeriados, which he revised and issued as The Barons Warres in
1603. This was the most ambitious of a eries of historical poems by Drayton, of which the best known (and
the shortest) is perhaps the Ballad of Agincourt, first printed in 1606:

Upon Saint Crispin’s day

Fought was this noble fray
Which fame did not delay
To England to carry;
O, when shall the English men
With such acts fill a pen,
Or England breede againe,
Such a King Harry

Historical Poetry of this kind is distinct from literature and chivalry, but both helped create a picture of the
Middle Ages as a period of heroic deeds, thrilling stories, and national glory rather than the ignorance of
superstition.

Influences of this kind, combined with the increasing conservatism of a government of ageing
revolutionaries, helped to bring a return to, or strengthening of, tradition. In a general architectural context
this ‘Court’ architecture was conterminous with the peak of this type of chivalric Elizabethan Pageantry.

The display side of the Elizabethan and Jacobean tournament is only a section of the field of pageantry, to
which a very great amount of time and trouble was devoted throughout the period. Before discussing
Elizabethan castles of stone, maybe it would be best to discuss Elizabethan castles of cardboard or canvas,
for the latter is the larger group, and perhaps helped inspire the former. The castle has been a feature of
masques and pageants since medieval times, and it continued through the sixteenth century into the
seventeenth century. Mimic castles were (to quote a few many examples) features of pageantry
accompanying Henry V’s return to London from Agincourt in 1415; Henry VII’s entry into York in 1486;
Charles V’s reception at London in 1522; the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533; Elizabeth’s coronation
procession in 1558; her entry into Warwick in 1572; and the Lord Mayor’s show of 1612, 1613 and 1635.

A favourite feature of pageants was the castle assault – usually, for symbolic reasons, garrisoned by ladies.
At the wedding masque of Arthur and the Princess of Spain in 1501, for instance, a castle on wheels ‘right
cunningly devised’ was drawn into the hall by ‘fower great beasts with chanes of gold...There were within
the same Castle disguised VIII goodlye fresh ladyes, looking out of the windows of the same, and in the
foure apparelled like a maiden.’ The children sang as the pageant moved up the hall, and the castle was later
assaulted by ‘VIII goodly knights naming themselves Knights of the Mount of Love’ who captured the
ladies. A castle or fort on an Island in a lake was a feature of the elaborate entertainment which Lord
Hertford mounted for the Queen at Elvetham in Hampshire in 1591. The castle – ‘twenty foot square every
way and evergreen with willows’ – is described as ‘environed with armed men’ and Spirit of the lake

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appeared on the water to tell Elizabeth that ‘That Fort did Neptune raise for your defence.’ A display of
fireworks from the fort followed; more was planned, however due to rain had to be abandoned.

An Elizabethan engraving of the occasion (fig .4) is one of the last to survive depicting these extravagant
fests. An account of these sham-castles could go on interminably. To end with one, the Prince of Wale’s
entertainments of 1610 included a great water-fight of ships-of-war and galleys ‘against a great castle
builded upon the water’, followed by ‘many strange and variable fireworks.’

FIG .4

The reasoning for having sham-castles in pageants and tournaments were reasonably obvious. Sham-castles
in architecture are more complex. In most buildings of time it is easy enough to find Gothic echoes and
roots. But there are a few where the evocations of the Middle Ages, chivalric pageantry, or the world of the
romances is so strong as to set them in a class by themselves. These are the Elizabethan and Jacobean
castles. They are a somewhat variegated group, because of the differences of their starting-points. In some
the intention it seems is to evoke a medieval castle – in some cases this was because there was a medieval
castle on the site before. At Ruperra it seems an objective effort of not producing a copy, but rather creating
devices – evolving something novel and clever out of an allusion to the past.

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Lulworth and Ruperra

When walking about Lulworth or Ruperra it is hard to describe them in a manner other than that which
constitutes them as a pair because of their startling similarities. They either had a common original or one
inspired the other. Both are compact square houses, with battlements and round towers at the corners. (fig .5)
Both are three storeys high, and have arched window-lights of Tudor-Gothic type, (fig .6 & 7)

FIG .5 THE GROUND-FLOOR PLANS OF

LULWORTH (left) AND RUPERRA (right)

Both by Jacobean standards have a low ratio of lazing to wall. The two houses are almost identical in size
and have remarkably similar plans, in which the same number of rooms are grouped in the same way round
a central core; at Lulworth this core rose above the roof in the form of a little tower, and in both houses the
main chimney-flues seem to have been carried up in it. Until recently both where ruins, Lulworth being
restored fully in 1998 by English Heritage many years after the building was gutted by fire in 1929. Ruperra
suffered the same fate for the second time in 1941 when a British regiment of Searchlights had been
stationed in the castle grounds; a large fire broke out caused by faulty electric wiring.

Lulworth is the earlier of the two houses. It was built as a very grand hunting-lodge, an appendage to the
main family house at Bindon a few miles away. Started in 1588 in 1588 by Thomas Howard’s elder brother
Henry and only approached completion around 1607 after Thomas had inherited the property.

Ruperra is said to have been dated 1626 on the porch (fig 8 & 9). After Thomas Morgan (1564-1632) had
made his fortunes he entered the ring of extravagant Elizabethan society and when the seventh Earl of

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Shrewsbury’s daughter (and Sir Charles Cavendish’s niece) Mary Talbot married
married the Earl of Pembroke in
1604, Thomas Morgan was one of the trustees of the marriage settlement.

FIG .6 FIG .7

FIG .8 FIG .9
There is a possible basis for a Smythson connection here. Robert Smythson (1535 -1614 ) was a prominent
English Architect of the time who designed many other notable Elizabethan country homes around the same
period. It is the nature of Ruperra that makes on take it seriously. The four round towers are suggestive of
the mysterious plan at the commanding silhouette of Wollaton, completed in 1588. The enclosed core
containing the main flues and rising above the roofs as a tower seems to relate to the plan in the liabry

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Longleat, and to Bolsover and Shireoaks. The windows are suggestive of Smythson’s windows at Wardour.
At Lulworth, but not Ruperra, the hall ran along one side of the house, with its main axis at right angles to
the axis of the entrance porch. This position is an unsusal one for a hall, but similar to that found in several
Smythson drawings, and at Gawthorpe, Shireoaks and Bolsover. It seems however that the difference is
however to great for both two have been complete Smythson works and if anything, Smythson’s input must
have been limited to Plans and Elevations.

Castle and Surrounding Area

Ruppera is of stone and brick construction, common for country houses of the time and the area of Gwent,
the exterior is rendered with a thick roughcast. The mullioned windows have dressed limestone surrounds.
Until the refurbishment of the early Victorian period, the main entrance was in the centre of the south side,
where the storeyed ashlar dressed stone porch is topped with balustrading and is decorated with a heraldic
panel over the door, (fig .9).

When looking at the location and reasoning behind choosing building here it is relevant to consider the
surrounding countryside and normal practice at the time. In selection Morgan moved forward in the same
way as he did at Pencoed Castle by building, it is thought, on the site a medieval castle. The Morgan’s
where passionate about their ancestral past. The Pencoed Morgan’s especially so, descended from Llewelyn
ap Ivor (lord of St. Cleare) and his wife Angharad, daughter of Sir Morgan Meredith (and representative of
the Ancient Welsh Lords of Caerleon). Angharad was born in 1300. The name Morgan was originally spelt
"Morcant" in Old Welsh and only became "Morgan" in the medieval period. The area suited the longing
Morgan had for his sham-castle in the way that few other places could offer.

The castle lies in a four mile wide triangle of beautiful, unspoilt, rolling countryside between the rapidly
expanding conurbations of Cardiff, Newport and Caerphilly. When in the 1935 sale of the huge 53,000 acre
Tredegar estate the 3,000 acre Ruperra Estate mentioned hunting and shooting and boasted its 3 hour train
journey time to London. When in 1802 Benjamin Malkin was visiting the park, gathering material for his
new book described as how 'singularly beautiful' the effect of the harvest moon shining on the Bristol
Channel as he walked across the park. And this is certainly the type of evocative feeling one is overcome
with when walking through the park and peering through the windows of this ‘Romantic Ruin.’ Although
today, things are different and the deer have long since disappeared and the M4 motorway can be seen in the
distance, however it can almost never be heard and the peaceful atmosphere and picturesque landscape at
Ruperra is an aesthetic tonic. The area surroundings the castle is today largely agricultural with the area to
the north of the Castle known as Craig Ruperra. Between around 700 BC and 100 AD an Iron Age Hill Fort
was constructed along the ridge of Coed Craig Ruperra, and later about 1100 AD a huge heap of earth for a
Norman type motte or castle was piled up on the top of the ridge. In the estate plan of 1764 it seems this
motte was replaced with a two storey summerhouse on the top of Craig Ruperra, which may have been built
at the same time as the castle more than a century earlier as the foundation stones date to the same period as
the south porch.

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Developments

In the Victorian and Edwardian Periods New lodges, namely Ruperra Park Lodge, East Lodge ( now
demolished),West
West Lodge and Ironbridge Cottage were built.
built The Iron Bridge, situated near lower Machen
(now listed),, had been built in 1826 to take the new carriage way from the Castle through Coed Craig
Ruperra and across the Rhymney River to Lower Machen Church where the family and their servants
attended Sunday services.

By the end of the century the buildings at Ruperra

Ruperra were in need of repair. The stable block had been
destroyed by fire in 1895. After the death of Colonel Frederick Morgan in 1909, his son Courtenay
embarked on a programme of refurbishment to include a new east entrance porch, (fig .11) new stables (fig
.12) , a new power house fitted with duplicate steam-driven
steam driven generators, dynamos and boilers and a new
reservoir and pump house in the deer park. The brew house, laundry and dairy range built in the 1840s, were
converted to accommodate the valets, footmen,
foo chauffeurs and garden staff.

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FIG .11

FIG .12

In spite of the splendid building works, Ruperra at the turn of the last century became very much only the
second home of the Morgan family. Courtenay, the Lord Tredegar at the time lived at Tredegar
Tr House and
his son Evan did not make Ruperra his home as previous ‘sons in waiting’ had done. With only a small
domestic staff installed, Ruperra was used for hunting and shooting and weekend parties. Even so the
gardens were maintained to a high order,
order, with Mr Angus McKinnon heading a large staff. Angus’ wife
Agnes supervised the domestic arrangements; his family are pictured in fig .13.

By 1935 the fortunes of the Morgan family had declined and the 3000 acre estate was put up for sale. But
there weree no offers. The contents of the Castle were disposed of in a three day sale. What remained was
taken to Tredegar House, the Castle abandoned and the gardens left to go wild.

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FIG .13

Recent Activity

As of recent there have been considerable

erable developments in the tale of Ruperra castle. After changing hands
many times in throughout
ghout the last century, Its current owner, Ashraf Barakat, who bought the property in
1998, had proposed to convert the castle - which has been designated both a Grade II Listed
L Building and a
Scheduled Ancient Monument - into nine residential flats, and fully refurbish a number of other buildings on
the site., which include 18 two storey houses. This angered members of the Ruperra Conservation Trust and
Ruperra Castle Actionn Group, who say the character of the castle and its grounds would be lost if new
houses were built.

However on December 05, 2007 this planning application was deferred for refusal by Cearphilly country
council and the building now seems to have been saved. Prior to which many any prominent articles
artic had been
written on the plight of the castle as of recent, these include an article by Marcus Binney for country life
magazine,, in which he goes to describe the plight of Rupperra castle as, ‘desperate’ and how it seems the
castles estimated £7.5 million refurbishment costs could not be covered exclusively by CADW, he later
writes how ‘It is hard to see how this tragic case can be resolved without a determined lead from the Welsh
Assembly.’

The late Dr Giles Worsley wrote an article in Country Life entitled ‘On the Ruins of Ruperra’ in 1986, when
he explained the uniqueness of Ruperra in the historical
histor architecture of Wales.

“Somehow country houses have been seen to lack a Welshness that would make them culturally respectable.
The RCAHM publication of the ‘Greater Houses of Glamorgan ‘ in 1981 showed how false that idea was
and how incorrect it is to believe that Wales lacked architecturally important houses. The 16th and early
17th centuries are perhaps the most fascinating years in the history of these houses when Welsh tradition
and English influences clashed. At Ruperra we see the triumph of court based architectural ideals,
ideals but the
result is a house still marked by local tradition, a house that can be read as part of the Elizabethan and
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Jacobean revival of chivalry, but that gains added value in a country of castles, where many of the great
houses of its day were still semi fortified, little influenced by the Renaissance.”

Ruperra is a magic place especially when approached from the urban sprawl of the coastal plain. The other
great Morgan House, Tredegar House on the outskirts of @ewport, was saved when it was on the brink and
is now one of the great sites of South Wales. Ruperra, ruined but in unspoilt country, is its natural
complement. The people of South Wales deserve to have it saved.”

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