Ruperra Castle Ruin

It's been a lovely sunny day in contrast to yesterday afternoon. A couple of weeks ago someone contacted me and wanted to meet up to pick my brains about aerial photography. He lives local, so after picking him up we drove to an old friends farm which encompasses Ruperra Castle near Caerphilly.

The Blipfoto is of the castle ruin. Here's a history for those interested:

Built in 1626 by Sir Thomas Morgan it was one of the first of the 'mock' castles to be built in Wales. King Charles 1 spent two nights at Ruperra Castle in 1645 shortly after the Battle of Naseby. Resultantly the royal coat of arms was added to the decoration on the South Porch, and the present public footpath from Rudry to the Castle is still known as "King's Drive."

It was bought as his home by wealthy John Morgan (The Merchant) for 12,400 pounds. He was unmarried and it was consolidated on his death in 1715 into the Tredegar estates of the Morgan family.
It was destroyed by fire in 1785, and rebuilt, resultantly became home, especially in the 19th century, to the heir of the estate Godfrey Charles Morgan who was a captain in the Charge of The Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava in the Crimea War was born at Ruperra. It was during the early Victorian age that he undertook a lot of development, adding three new lodges. 

In 1909, his son Viscount Courtenay Morgan, embarked on a programme of refurbishment. Minor adjustements were made to the main house, but his major improvement was the building of a new stable block to replace the one destroyed by fire in 1895. Courtenay's son, then owned Ruperra. He grew up there and, apparently, refused to sell it to William Randolph Hurst whose lover, the actress Marion Davis wanted a home in South Wales. Later, after Davis saw photographs of St Donats Castle, Nr Cardiff in Country Life magazine, that property was bought and revitalised by Hearst in 1925 as a gift to Davis.

But by 1935, the Morgan fortune was in decline. Despite having invested heavily in the property, the Morgan seat and main home remained Tredegar House with Ruperra used as a weekend hunting lodge. The entire 3,000 acres estate was put up for sale, with the contents either moved to Tredegar House or sold in three-day auction. Un-staffed and effectively abandoned, at the start of World War 2, like many other large estate houses, it was taken over by the British Army under whose control in 1941 it was destroyed by another fire. Post the end of the war, the entire estate was sold onwards as farm land, with the castle left as a decaying ruin, the status in which it remains today.

Mr Ashraf Barakat bought the castle in 1998, and tried to revive the sport of Polo in Wales. After failing in a planning permission application to construct nine residential flats within the building, due to the discovery of nesting bats, he later applied to demolish it to build housing, but again planning permission was refused. In September 2010, Barakat put the castle up for sale, at a price of £1.5M