Colombia: Bogotá ◦ Cartagena ◦ Medellín.Canada: Elora, Ontario ◦ Hamilton, Ontario ◦ Kitchener, Ontario ◦ Montreal ◦ Ottawa ◦ Quebec City ◦ Toronto ◦ Vancouver ◦ Victoria, BC.Brazil: Recife ◦ Rio de Janeiro ◦ São Paulo.Austria: Klagenfurt ◦ Salzburg ◦ Vienna.Australia: Adelaide ◦ Brisbane ◦ Broulee ◦ Gold Coast ◦ Melbourne ◦ North West Slopes, NSW ◦ Riverina Region ◦ Sydney.We can but imagine what life inside the castle might have been like for a mighty and wealthy lord.īut now I want you to follow the path to the left so that the castle is on your right, and follow the route of the castle wall as it turns right at the end of this path and over the small feeder canal towards the park entrance.Īs you walk I want to tell you why the Earl of Pembroke was such a colourful figure in Tudor society who deserves more attention! This is the Medieval ladies walk, and you can imagine on a sunny day the courtiers, maybe even the Earl himself and his wife Anne, taking exercise along the ramparts of this wall, walking with grace and posture in their colourful garments, admiring the view, looking down on the herb gardens planted inside the castle grounds. Let's leave the Banqueting Hall now and look to the left of the castle building. The bread they use - a fine bread made with flour, not the coarse bread that the commoners eat. Guests eat with great decorum and etiquette but do so with their fingers, or by dipping bread into the sauce dishes, as forks only become popular at the very end of the Tudor era. Some dishes come in rich sauces infused with herbs and spices.ĭesserts follow with custards, sugars, marzipan The food is unlike anything ordinary folk will ever know: rich in meats and fishes, pheasant, partridge, goose, boar, maybe even swan and venison. The Earl is gathered with his guests, the minstrels are playing, the feast is being brought out with pomp and ceremony. In a moment I will tell you more about him but first please look straight ahead and imagine you can see through its walls and into its great hall right opposite you. He might not be widely known but his life was a classic Tudor adventure story. The Earl of Pembroke's name was also William Herbert. He was the Earl of Pembroke, and was distantly related to the two Herbert brothers I told you about earlier on in the tour. So it was a much smaller house then, but for the time it was luxurious and the home to an amazing figure in Cardiff and British history. From this tower the castle building extended to the right only as far as the next rectangular tower, where the building ended, and to the left, where it ended before the left hand tower which was added later. That was the central part of the main Tudor building, without a spire in Tudor times. Let's start with the tall octagonal tower with the grey spire on top. This building looks quite different today from Tudor times, when it was much smaller.īut we can still see part of the Tudor Castle.
Stop here for a moment in front of the spectacular towers and spires of Cardiff Castle's main building.