Cadw is a Welsh word meaning ‘to keep’ or ‘to protect’. And that’s exactly what they do. They are working for an accessible and well-protected historic environment for Wales.
Cadw is made up of around 250 people working across a range of disciplines.
Around 100 of their people are custodians — working at monuments in their care — or are part of the in-house teams that undertake conservation and maintenance at our sites.
They have specialist staff, including field monument wardens and inspectors of historic buildings, ancient monuments and historic parks and gardens, who are based all over Wales.
Many of their staff are regularly ‘out and about’ around Wales, visiting sites, meeting the public or local authority representatives — little of Cadw’s work can be done only from behind a desk.
Entrance Ticket
The unmistakable silhouette of Raglan crowning a ridge amid glorious countryside is the grandest castle ever built by Welshmen.
You can thank Sir William ap Thomas, the ‘blue knight of Gwent’, for the moated Great Tower of 1435 that still dominates this mighty fortress-palace.
His son Sir William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, created the gatehouse with its flared ‘machicolations’.
These stone arches allowed missiles to be rained down on attackers. But Raglan came 150 years later than the turbulent heyday of castle-building. It was designed to impress as much as to intimidate.
Under various earls of Worcester Raglan was transformed into a magnificent country seat with a fashionable long gallery and one of the finest Renaissance gardens in Britain. But loyalty to the crown was to prove its undoing.
Despite a garrison of 800 men and one of the longest sieges of the Civil War, it fell to parliamentary forces and was deliberately destroyed. Among the looted treasures was a piece of Tudor wooden panelling, now proudly displayed in the visitor centre after being rescued from a cow shed in the
1950s.
OPENING TIMES
01/04/23- 31/03/24
Daily
Closed: 24th-26th December and 1st January
Note: during extreme weather conditions the attraction may need to close at short notice.
