Oystermouth Castle

We pootle on down to Swansea Bay in the Gower Peninsular to check out Oystermouth Castle.

Oh, and in case you wondered the answer is, yes they do, but they don’t look obviously like mouths. Let’s face it, nothing in there looks obviously like anything.

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Script

SCRIPT 300 WORDS OF TEXT HERE

Start

Hello people of the internet! And welcome to another episode of Something Vloggy. We are at mumbles Ian *mumbles*

Jo *mumbles*

The Outside

See, that’s where we are. And we are here to visit Oystermouth Castle. See behind me? Can’t miss it,

it’s a castle! The outside I’d say it was on a par with Kidwelly Castle. Although you can hear the traffic noise, and the alarms, and everything else going on in the town, here is kind of like a little oasis of calm. In front of me now you’ll

see the town we’ve just come through, and you can see the estuary from it. There are walks around here and they look like quite nice ones too. This one in particular leads up to

Oystermouth Castle Wood. I’m guessing cuz it’s

Oystermouth Castle, and it’s a wood. Look at the castle, Look at the castle Joey. I’m looking at it. It’s Good.

Yeah, there you go. Castle. It’s got a good wrapper on it. Let’s go check out the centre of it. See if it’s got chocolate all the way through. Ooh, that’d be good.

Historical Beginnings

Oystermouth Castle sits on the Gower Peninsula,overlooking Swansea Bay in the resort town of mumbles. The castle was founded in the early 12th century, somewhere around 1106 by William de Londres – William of London of Ogmore Castle. Although that was probably just a ring work and Bailey, and there is now nothing of that castle left. In 1116 the Welsh retook the Gower Peninsula and torched the castle. It was rebuilt shortly afterwards, and was then destroyed again in 1137; when the peninsula was again taken by the Welsh. The Londres family died out in 1215, when Gower was once again taken by the Welsh, under the leadership of Llewellyn the Great.

Oystermouth Today.

In Henry the 3rd expelled the Welsh and returned the barony of Gower to John de Braose, who rebuilt both this and Swansea castle. Anyway, the keep of this castle- that’s the fortified tower- is the oldest bit, and that dates from the th century.

Garderobes

This chamber houses the best expample of a stone pillar in the castle. And it also boasts having the first garderobe inbuilt in the room. Garderobes, they’re toilets, and cloakrooms! Which people put their cloaks in because it was thought that the smell would keep away nasty pests. Before the garderobe you would have had:a pot, a screen to hide behind, and a plank of wood with a hole in it. This was the height of indoor

plumbing. I’m glad things have changed. It’s a dark room.

How It Was Formed

Now this is the kind of room that I like. Lots of open spaces with doorways and windows that lead to nowhere. Kind of leaves something for the imagination to figure out how this eclectic building was formed. It started off as an earth and stone structure, to have a defensive position from; and then it was used as a residence. And from there it was fortified, and fortified, and expanded, and then it was a home again and a Chapel added later on. So yes, this building has seen many uses; from homely to, well you know, a good old bashing.

How the Lords and Ladies Lived

This is the uppermost floor of three floors, each has their own fireplace and garderobe. So these were thought to be chambers for Lords ladies. You know, your average noble.

Banqueting Hall

So this rectangle of land here it’s quite small, right? You wouldn’t have thought banqueting-hall. I always thought the banqueting halls as being much more expansive, but apparently this is not only a banqueting-hall size but, also they thought it might be a kitchen.

Because there are quite a few fireplaces there.

Alina’s Chapel

This is Alina’s Chapel, it was the last thing to be added on to the castle, it’s got five gothic windows and the views are lovely. Lady Alina added this Chapel on to the castle after being imprisoned in the Tower of London for five years. Her husband had been captured and killed, and she’d lost her son, and , well, she created a chapel. But, it is a lovely space up here with views right out to the sea, and over the town. Not

sure the town would have looked like back then. This chapel would once have been covered in paintings, the paintings have now eroded.

Ian’s Thoughts

One of the things that you might notice is it in the background there’s a lot of noise. Now I’m quite close to a school, but we are in the middle of the town so lots of things make noise around here, so

it’s not exactly the most tranquil of places. However, it’s an interesting Castle, it’s all different levels. And you’ve got the glass bridge that you can walk across, and you can look out and you can see the sea, and that’s all very pretty. This is a well worth the visit; costs three pounds and fifty pence for

an adult to get in, and then of course we paid a couple of quid for the parking as well. Which, again, not too bad. In fact that’s pretty good. All things considered- this is definitely worth a look.

Conclusion

Hello! That’s it for Oystermouth Castle. We are heading onto our next destination, another castle. Hmm, which one will it be? Ooh, that’s the secret. A secret you can find out on next Mondays episode of Something Vloggy goes in search of castley type things. That’s a bit of a long name isn’t it? Phhft, it is. We’ll probably shorten it. Yeah, I would imagine so. So, what did you think of this Castle? I liked it. mean it could have been quieter. You know me, I like a bit of peace and quiet in me castles. It was quiet in the castle, it was weird how much noise it hits you as you come out the walls. Oh yeah. But, other than that, it was good.

Fin

Anyway, we will be seeing you next time. So I’d imagine you’ve already subscribed, But if you haven’t, Please do, And click the little bell, to give it some ears! TTFN See you next time! I can see our house from here. You can’t.