Open Doors Heritage Day 2014

We are really fortunate that Anthony and Alex Rees at Ruperra Home Farm are so willing to let us hold meetings in their old Barn. 

Our Open Doors Heritage day was one of those meetings and it was a great success. This year we had seventy people attend which shows that an increasing number of people are now aware of the situation at Ruperra Castle. They surely did not come only for the lovely tea and cakes!

Our Patron, Simon Boyle, Lord Lieutenant of Gwent and his wife were very welcome visitors to the event and Simon gave us an introductory speech. We were also very pleased that William Graham the Assembly Member for South Wales East was willing to give us a talk. He spoke in the field to the south of the Castle about the Morgan Family of Ruperra. He  lives very near Ruperra and has always supported the Trust. 

It was good to talk to people over tea and cakes in the old Barn when the walk was over. There was great interest in the exhibition and everyone was really enjoying themselves, but there was an underlying sense of hopelessness, that for yet another year we have been unable to enter the Castle grounds. Indeed the Castle is now so unsafe that it would be dangerous for the public to be near it. Furthermore the growth of vegetation round the grounds and on the castle itself makes viewing from the footpaths very difficult. 

Simon Boyle said “We enjoyed it all, though I must say one could not help feeling frustrated by the general difficulty of actually seeing the castle. It looked rather a sad ghost of itself.”

On Monday 22^nd September, two officers from Cadw were visiting the site to survey the condition of the buildings. We await their report which has been commissioned by the Welsh Government.