Day 24 13/7/19 Caerphilly, Caerleon and Newport

Day 24 13/7/19 Caerphilly, Caerleon and Newport

We decided to re-visit the ruined castle at Caerphilly today, the largest castle in Wales apparently, as Maritta hadn’t seen it and I didn’t have enough time to visit the towers and explore it fully. We are more interested in the older ones rather than the ones that have been rebuilt.

Castell Cloch looms out of the forest

Caerphilly High Street

Anyway, found our way there, missed a turn off so used a different route, which is good, see more of the countryside. Put our 3 pounds in the parking meter for 4 hours (parked much closer today). Walked over to the castle and found it was closed for the weekend due to a festival of some sort (need to start checking the night before we visit somewhere). Anyway, Maritta explored the local market for a while, there were only about 10 stalls, not sure why it took so long.

Caerphilly Town Hall

Geese enjoy the moat

Leaning tower is very obvious from this angle

Tiny ferns cling to life

Then we decided to visit the Roman ruins at Caerleon, near Newport, site of the last Roman Fort in the UK.

After we found somewhere to park, not easy especially on a weekend, we wandered around the amphitheater and then the town. Lost Maritta for a while (or she lost me) but we eventually found each other. It happened to be the Caerleon festival, a lot of that going on it seems, so there was a craft market to explore and then the village itself. We didn’t visit the Roman Baths but apparently they are good.

River Usk

Local party of some sort

Roman Amphitheatre

A closer view

Caerleon Main Street, one way fortunately

Inside Roman Gate

Outside Roman Gate

Sculptures in the laneway

More amazing sculptures

From there we decided to visit the “Transport Bridge” in Newport. GPS got us close and then we found some signs. This is a magnificent aerial ferry built at the end of the era of sail. The gantry itself is high enough to clear the tallest mast whilst the gondola below carries both pedestrians and up to six small cars. There are a number of these still operating but this is the only one which is still as original, no brakes and guided by eye and a steady hand. Most are now equipped with modern safety “improvements” and in one case radar to detect ships (it still managed to run into one apparently).

Newport transport bridge dominates skyline

Gondola takes passengers and up to six cars

Sign showing other similar bridges

Gondola has no brakes so a large pin is used to keep it in place

Next stop, The Newport Medieval Ship (GPS took us straight to the front door much to our surprise). This is the most complete medieval ship ever found and the volunteers are so enthusiastic it is well worth a visit (see www.newportship.org). The remains were discovered in 2002 when the Newport Museum built a coffer dam to extend their building. Unfortunately they had put down concrete piles to support the new foundations before they discovered the remains of the 15^th century vessel. This meant the ship had to be dismantled piece by piece. It is now in the process (17 years later, and you thought my car restorations were slow) of being preserved and will eventually be re-assembled and located in a purpose built museum.

Preserved and re-assembled clinker boards, bolted together with plastic bolts as the preservation chemicals will attack any metal

1/10 scale Model of the ship, model man in centre (look closely) is to scale (at 6ft tall) to show size of ship solid boards at the bottom are what has been found, rest is an estimation using known historical information.

Iron nails from ship