Raglan Castle

My renewal Cadw (Welsh Historic Monument Conservation) membership card arrived yesterday. Besides free entry to all their sites I now get free entry to English Heritage and a few other perks. Being a beautiful sunny day in the region of 27c I took a drive to Raglan Castle.

I've done an aerial view last year here so I thought I'd do one from inside the castle.

The one I like best is looking down from the main watch tower that houses the Welsh flag. I like the perspective and it's got a fair bit in the frame with the aid of my fisheye lens. It's an in camera HDR.

Raglan Castle is a late medieval castle located just north of the village of Raglan in the county of Monmouthshire in south east Wales. The modern castle dates from between the 15th and early 17th-centuries, when the successive ruling families of the Herberts and the Somersets created a luxurious, fortified castle, complete with a large hexagonal keep, known as the Great Tower or the Yellow Tower of Gwent.

Surrounded by parkland, water gardens and terraces, the castle was considered by contemporaries to be the equal of any other in England or Wales. During the English Civil War the castle was held on behalf of Charles 1 and was taken by Parliamentary forces in 1646. In the aftermath, the castle was deliberately put beyond military use; after the restoration of of Charles 2nd, the Somersets declined to restore the castle. Raglan Castle became first a source of local building materials, then a romantic ruin, and is now a modern tourist attraction.