Wales

Ta-da!! My first 2008 photo posted to the internet!! It's about time, 6 months behind schedule!! I do have a life, however. :-)

This is the entrance to Cardiff Market, which is a shopping passage, basically an early mall, constructed in 1891. I hate malls usually, but I like this one, since it's in a city centre, it primarily caters to walkers, and it looks nice. :-)

St. John the Baptist Parish Church was supposedly built during the 12th Century, although most of the currently surviving structure dates to the 15th Century. It is still an active Anglican (I think) church, open every day.

I did several versions of this shot, and this one, converted to black and white, is my favorite. I wanted to convey the sheer ugliness of the malls currently wrecking Britain and everything of value in Britain.

Ironically, my picture of Welsh cider, while taken on a visit to Wales, was actually part of a side trip to Bath, in England!! This brand is Orchard Gold, which I had never had before.

One of my side trips while I was in Wales during New Year's 2007-2008 was to Swansea, and here I have the first of four photos I shot of the castle. Wikipedia says this about it: "Swansea Castle was founded by Henry de Beaumont in 1106 as the caput of the lordship of Gower. The original castle seems to have been a sub-rectangular/oval enclosure overlooking the River Tawe on the east, surrounded on the north, west and south sides by a larger sub-rectangular outer bailey. The inner bailey probably contained a motte but the other view is that it was a ring work. The new castle was attacked by the Welsh in 1116 but the inner castle held. After various other unsuccessful attacks the castle fell in 1217 but was restored to the English in 1220 as part of the settlement between Llywelyn ap Iorwerth and Henry III of England. Immediately after this the inner castle was probably walled in stone with at least one tower. Swansea Castle Later in the 13th century the large outer bailey was also walled. The only visible remains are two sides of a rectangular "new castle" built in the South East corner of the outer bailey in the late 13th/early 14th century. The south face (which ends in a tall garderobe tower) is capped with an elegant series of arcades at the wall-head, which are similar to structures at the Bishop of Saint David's palaces at Lamphey and St David's. By then the castle had lost its military importance. It is not known whether it fell to allies of Owain Glyndŵr early in the 15th century. In the 18th and 19th centuries parts of the castle were variously used as a market, a town hall, a drill hall and a prison. Part of the interior of the new castle was demolished early in the 20th century in the construction of a newspaper office. The remains have now been consolidated and opened up to view from the street."

Here's my second shot of the castle.

Here you can see the BT building, although I don't know if this is the "newspaper building" mentioned in the Wikipedia article.

Again with the BT building....

Swansea has always been a port city, of course, but today most of the traffic is in small boats. I'm pretty sure this is some kind of tug or ex-tug, although someone who knows ships or boats better could probably give more information. I do note that this one doesn't have any tires on it for padding so......

Swansea has a small but interesting city museum, featuring the town's history as a port, manufacturing, and mining town, and much of the history has to do with the industrial revolution, as in the case of this beam engine.

This is St. Mary's Church, which I photographed on the way back to the train station. I don't know a lot about it, but I figured it would make a nice photo....

Although it's just a railway viaduct, and not a particularly long or high one, I've always like how this one looks. This is in Cardiff, of course, and takes the former Great Western into Cardiff Central.

Next to the Cardiff railway viaduct is this water tower, which I'm assuming was originally for steam locomotives, and behind it in the distance is Brain's Brewery, with the slogan "It's Brains you want!"

I'm not sure if I took this on my way out of Cardiff, or on my way in, but I'm 90% certain it was on my way out or sometime soon before. Notice the original "Great Western Railway" lettering, which is still relevant as this station is still served by First Great Western.

This was the first of many trains I had to take to get home to Prague, this one being an Intercity 125 for London Paddington. I never got the number, but on magnifying the photo I'm fairly certain that this lead Class 43 power unit was #43192.

I ended up in Wales for my New Year's break again in 2011-2012, and one of the trips I took there was to Caerphilly Castle, which I surprisingly had not visited yet. It was easy to get there by train, although strangely I don't have photos. Lately, I've been lazy about taking train photos. The original Caerphilly Castle was completed in 1290 by Gilbert de Clare, whose French name was typical of the era, which was Norman-dominated. More notoriously, de Clare is implicated in the Canterbury Pogrom of 1264, which some historians, like Richard Huscroft, claim he led. He also had poor relations with the Roman Catholic church, being excommunicated within months of the pogrom. Biographies of de Clare are available online, both with and without paywalls. One of the free ones is here: www.ffish.com/family_tree/Pedigrees/5361.htm The castle, as it currently stands, is a restoration from the 1930's. However, some parts of the castle have been left unrestored. For example, one tower has been left cracked open. I have additional photos of it which will be posted next.

I can't tell if that cloudy streak on the left was in the sky, or if it was a film defect, but it's kind of interesting in any case. Here you can see the unrestored, burst castle turret, in roughly the same place.