I seriously needed to blow off steam after the morning I had (more on this later), so I went for a walk in the huge river park right around the corner from Aberdare Hall. I accidentally found the castle. I didn’t go in because if I’m going to pay ten pounds admission, I want a whole day to explore. But I walked around the curtain wall. Most of it is a recent (if pretty) Victorian addition by the coal-exporting Bute family:
But from one angle, at just the right distance, you can see the crumbled, uneven top of the old Norman keep at one end of the grounds.
I was trying to guess what era the gatehouse is from. It can be hard to figure out exactly where the Butes’ remodel ends and the original castle begins. To me, the gatehouse and most of the curtain wall look recent-ish, but I could be wrong, or the crenellations could have been fixed up (this is the bit that throws me off—they don’t look crumbly enough) while the wall remains original.
Also, there are magpies. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a live magpie before. I couldn’t get one to hold still long enough to take a picture.