Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Castell Coch

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Castell Coch[edit]

This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 13, 2015 by  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:39, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Drawing room walls, showing decoration of Castell Coch

Castell Coch is a 19th-century Gothic Revival castle built above the village of Tongwynlais in South Wales. The first castle on the site was built by the Normans after 1081. The castle's earth motte was reused by Gilbert de Clare as the basis for a new stone fortification, built between 1267 and 1277. John Crichton-Stuart inherited the castle ruins in 1848. One of Britain's wealthiest men, he employed the architect William Burges to reconstruct the castle, "as a country residence for occasional occupation in the summer". Burges rebuilt the outside between 1875 and 1879; he died in 1881 and the interior work was not finished by his team until 1891, featuring elaborate decorations (pictured) including extensive use of symbolism drawing on classical and legendary themes. Bute planted a vineyard just below the castle, where wine production continued until the First World War. In 1950 his grandson, the 5th Marquess of Bute, placed the property into the care of the state. Castell Coch's external features and the High Victorian interiors led the historian David McLees to describe it as "one of the greatest Victorian triumphs of architectural composition." (Full article...)