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Arundel Castle

Arundel Castle is a restored and remodelled medieval castle in Arundel, West Sussex, England. It was established by Roger de Montgomery in the 11th century. The castle was damaged in the English Civil War and then restored in the 18th and early 19th centuries by Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk. Further restoration and embellishment was undertaken from the 1890s by Charles Alban Buckler for the 15th Duke.

Since the 11th century, the castle has been the seat of the Earls of Arundel and the Dukes of Norfolk. It is a Grade I listed building.

History
The original structure was a motte-and-bailey castle. Roger de Montgomery was declared the first Earl of Arundel as the King granted him the property as part of a much larger package of hundreds of manors. Roger, who was a cousin of William the Conqueror, had stayed in Normandy to keep the peace there while William was away in England. He was rewarded for his loyalty with extensive lands in the Welsh Marches and across the country, together with one fifth of Sussex (Arundel Rape). He began work on Arundel Castle in around 1067.

Between 1101 and 1102 the castle was besieged by the forces of Henry I after its holder Robert of Bellême rebelled. The siege ended with the castle surrendering to the king. The castle then passed to Adeliza of Louvain (who had previously been married to Henry I) and her husband William d'Aubigny. Empress Matilda stayed in the castle, in 1139. It then passed down the d'Aubigny line until the death of Hugh d'Aubigny, 5th Earl of Arundel in 1243. John Fitzalan then inherited jure matris the castle and honour of Arundel, by which, according to Henry VI's "admission" of 1433, he was later retrospectively held to have become de jure Earl of Arundel.

The FitzAlan male line ceased on the death of Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel, whose daughter and heiress Mary FitzAlan married Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk in 1555, to whose descendants the castle and earldom passed.

In 1643, during the First English Civil War, the castle was besieged. The 800 royalists inside surrendered after 18 days. Afterwards in 1653 Parliament ordered the slighting of the castle; however "weather probably destroyed more".

Although the castle remained in the hands of the Howard family over the succeeding centuries, it was not their favourite residence, and the various Dukes of Norfolk invested their time and energy into improving other ducal estates, including Norfolk House in London. Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, was known for his restoration work and improvements to the castle beginning in 1787. The folly that still stands on the hill above Swanbourne Lake was commissioned by and built for the Duke by Francis Hiorne at this time.

In 1846, Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, visited Arundel Castle for three days. Henry Howard, 13th Duke of Norfolk, internally remodelled the castle in time for her visit. The architectural firm responsible for design of the furniture was named Morant. The work included a suite of six rooms, built on the second floor of the south-east range at this time.

After the 1846 Royal visit the 15th Duke began re-structuring the castle again from 1875 to 1905. The work, which was done to the designs of Charles Alban Buckler and undertaken by Rattee and Kett of Cambridge, was completed in the late 19th century. The 16th Duke had planned to give the castle to the National Trust but following his death in 1975 the 17th Duke cancelled the plan. He created an independent charitable trust to guarantee the castle's future, and oversaw restorative works.

The extensive gardens had received significant improvements by early 2020 through the efforts of head gardener Martin Duncan and his crew. A horticulturalist and landscape designer, Duncan has been working at the Castle since 2009; in 2018, he received the Kew Guild Medal. The gardeners and volunteers "have worked wonders with their bold and innovative plantings", according to an April 2020 report by Country Life. Their most recent efforts led to a wild water garden around the ponds.

The Collector's Earl Garden
Designed by Isabel and Julian Bannerman, The Collector's Earl Garden was opened in 2008 by Charles, Prince of Wales as a tribute to Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, known as ‘The Collector’. The garden's centerpiece, Oberon's Palace, is a stunning pavilion that features a shellwork grotto and a fountain that supports a golden corona when the water spurts.

Cricket
The cricket field in the castle grounds has, since 1895, seen matches of standards involving teams from local youths to international sides.

Other events

 * On 14 October 1651, Captain Morley, who held the Castle for Parliament, while out hunting, almost captured Charles II and Colonel Phillips. Charles II was on the run for his life at the time, fleeing from the Royalist defeat at Worcester. His party managed to just stay clear of Morley's party by dismounting as if to descend the hill more easily, thereby letting Morley's group run past them. (See Gounter, Last Act, p. 12. )
 * The visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (1846)
 * The opening of the Collector Earl's Garden 14 May 2008 by Charles, then Prince of Wales.
 * On Friday 21 May 2021 there was a break-in. A set of "irreplaceable" gold rosary beads carried by Mary, Queen of Scots, to her execution in 1587 were among items stolen. Other items taken included coronation cups given by monarchs to the Earl Marshal.

Filming location
Arundel Castle has been used as a filming location for several television and film productions. The BBC filmed extensively at the castle and its grounds in 1988 for the Doctor Who serial Silver Nemesis, where it doubled for Windsor Castle. It also doubled for Windsor Castle in the 1994 film The Madness of King George. Arundel Castle was also a location for the 2009 film The Young Victoria, and the 2017 film Wonder Woman.

In literature
In Thomas Malory's epic Morte D'Arthur, Arundel Castle is the castle of Anglides, the mother of Alisander le Orphelin.

title: Arundel Castle


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Castle Rising Castle

Castle Rising is a ruined medieval fortification in the village of Castle Rising, Norfolk, England. It was built soon after 1138 by William d'Aubigny II, who had risen through the ranks of the Anglo-Norman nobility to become the Earl of Arundel. With his new wealth, he constructed Castle Rising and its surrounding deer park, a combination of fortress and palatial hunting lodge. It was inherited by William's descendants before passing into the hands of the de Montalt family in 1243. The Montalts later sold the castle to Queen Isabella, who lived there after her fall from power in 1330. Isabella extended the castle buildings and enjoyed a regal lifestyle, entertaining her son, Edward III, on several occasions. After her death, it was granted to Edward, the Black Prince, to form part of the Duchy of Cornwall.

During the 15th century, the castle became increasingly valued for its hunting facilities rather than its military defences. It fell into disrepair and, despite the construction of new living quarters and service facilities, by the middle of the 16th century it was derelict. Henry VIII sold the property to Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, and most of the castle buildings were demolished. It was not until the 19th century, when Mary and Fulke Greville Howard inherited the property, that the castle was renovated and restored. Victorian scholars examined the site, and it was opened to the public. In 1958 the castle passed into the custody of the state, which carried out further stabilisation work and a programme of archaeological investigation. In 1998 English Heritage passed the management of the site back to its current owner, Baron Howard of Rising, who continues to operate the castle as a tourist attraction.

Castle Rising comprises three baileys, each defended by large earthworks, covering a total area of 5 ha, which archaeologists Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham consider to be among the most impressive in Britain. In the inner bailey is the great keep, probably modelled on that of Norwich Castle. It features extensive Romanesque designs, including pilaster buttresses and arcading. Historians Beric Morley and David Gurney believe this to be "one of the finest of all Norman keeps", and its military utility and political symbolism have been extensively discussed by academics. The castle was originally surrounded by a carefully managed landscape, from the planned town in front of the castle, to the deer park and rabbit warrens that stretched out behind it, intended to be viewed from the lord's chamber in the great keep.

12th – 13th centuries
Castle Rising was built soon after 1138 by William d'Aubigny II, an upwardly mobile Anglo-Norman noble who owned the surrounding manor of Snettisham. William married Adeliza of Louvain, the widow of King Henry I in that year, and became the Earl of Arundel in 1139. This transformed his social position, and one chronicler at Waltham Holy Cross complained how he "became intolerably puffed up ... and looked down upon every other eminence in the world except the King". With his new wealth, William built Castle Rising and New Buckenham Castle in Norfolk, and expanded Arundel Castle in West Sussex.

The castle was located 5 mi from the port of King's Lynn. In the 12th century it would have typically have been reached by boat, through a channel in the marshy Babingley River that ran nearby. Following the Norman Conquest of England, the land had been granted to Bishop Odo, the Earl of Kent, who may have used it as an administrative centre; there were many Saxo-Norman buildings on the site of the later castle. Although Norfolk was a prosperous region during this period, the location of the castle was not strategically important: its only militarily significance would have been as a regional muster point, and the surrounding lands were thinly populated, with poor, acidic agricultural soil. The attraction of the site to William is believed to have been that it was a relatively cheap and easy place in which to build a substantial new building and establish a large hunting park. Historian Richard Hulme argues that William essentially built "a palatial hunting lodge" on the site.

Massive resources were required to construct Castle Rising, which included three baileys with large earthwork defences and a stone keep, with an adjacent deer park just behind the castle. As part of the project, the existing settlement was moved away to the north, where it became a planned settlement adjacent to the new castle. A pre-existing Norman chapel on the site, built around 1100, was encircled by the castle defences, and the new parish church of St Lawrence was built in the town instead, although it is possible that this church also pre-dates the castle. William received permission from King Stephen to open a mint at the castle in 1145 and, probably linked to this development, settled a community of Jews in the town.

It is uncertain how often William actually stayed at his new castle. He and his wife probably preferred to reside in their estates around Arundel in the south of England, and both William and his descendants chose New Buckenham Castle, rather than Castle Rising, to serve as the caput, or main castle, for their Norfolk landholdings.

A prolonged civil war known as the Anarchy broke out in England from 1138 until 1154, between the followers of King Stephen and the Empress Matilda, only ending when Matilda's son, Henry II, finally inherited the kingdom. Despite William having backed Stephen during the war, after the end of the conflict he proved a loyal supporter of Henry and was allowed to retain his possessions. Henry clamped down on the operation of the regional mints, however, and closed the facility at Castle Rising; the local Jews resettled in King's Lynn. A second, rapid phase of construction work on the castle then occurred, probably in the 1170s in response to a major rebellion against Henry II. William supported the King, and fought against the rebels at the Battle of Fornham in neighbouring Suffolk. Around this time the height of the earth defences was doubled and the internal level of the west bailey raised to form a platform.

The castle was inherited by William d'Albini III, and in turn by his son, William IV, and grandson, William V. William V died in 1224, leaving it to his brother Hugh. Probably by this time the chapel inside the castle walls had fallen out of use as a religious building, and was instead employed for secular purposes. The top 3.7 m of the keep's walls are distinctively different from the rest of the building, and one theory to explain this is that the castle keep was not in fact completed during William II's lifetime, and that the final work on walls was carried out between 1200 and 1230 by his descendants. Hugh died childless in 1243, and the castle then passed to Roger de Montalt.

14th century
The Montalts were a prominent baronial family, but they had few other estates in the region and their family fortunes declined. In 1327, Roger de Montalt's younger brother, Robert, who was childless, sold the reversion of his rights in the castle to the Crown in 1327 for 10,000 marks – effectively selling it to the Crown with a life-time lease for him and his wife Emma. An alternative theory to explain the different style of stonework along the top of the keep is that the building was completed under William d'Albini II, but had become dilapidated by the start of the 14th century, requiring extensive repairs by Robert. The forebuilding of the keep was raised in height at one end around this time and a new, peaked roof added to it, and an imposing, timber-framed, brick kitchen was built in the inner bailey.

At the time of Robert's agreement with the Crown, the government of England was controlled by Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella of France, who was ruling as regent in the name of her young son, Edward III. Isabella fell from power when Edward toppled Mortimer in a coup d'état in 1330, but after a short period of house arrest she led a relatively normal life, enjoying considerable status as the King's mother. Edward granted Isabella several royal castles in England, including Castle Rising. Robert had died in 1329 and in 1331 Emma sold her rights to the castle to Isabella for £400.

From then on, Isabella used Castle Rising as one of her main residences until her death in 1358. Isabella was a wealthy woman, as the King granted her a yearly income of £3,000, which by 1337 had increased to £4,000. She enjoyed a regal lifestyle in Norfolk, maintaining minstrels, huntsmen and grooms, and received visits from Edward and the royal household on at least four occasions. Despite her large income, Isabella ran up long-standing debts with the local merchants near the castle. Around the time that she took over the castle, a new set of buildings were constructed in the central bailey, including a west range containing a residential suite, a new private chapel, and a south range linking to various service buildings; the existing kitchen was reused. The great hall was reroofed, although Isabella lived in the west range, using the keep only for formal occasions or as accommodation for very senior guests. A brick wall around the outside of the inner bailey may have been built around this time to provide additional security.

The castle then passed to Isabella's grandson, Edward the Black Prince. Edward III had decreed in 1337 that his son would inherit the castle after Isabella's death, complete with the surrounding manor and the right to part of the tolls from King's Lynn, although these brought in only a relatively modest £100 a year. As part of this arrangement, the King declared the castle to be a permanent part of the Duchy of Cornwall, an estate traditionally assigned for the use of the Prince of Wales. The Prince undertook repairs to the castle during the 1360s, including spending £81 on repairing the "Nightegale Tower" in 1365, although it is uncertain which part of the castle this refers to. The Prince died in 1376, returning the Duchy of Cornwall to the control of the Crown, and during this time Castle Rising appears to have been maintained in good condition. It was ordered on several occasions during the 1380s to raise local forces to counter the threat of a French invasion, and may have been equipped with two cannons. If not built by Isabella, the brick wall around the inner bailey may have been constructed during this period.

Under Richard II, the rights to the castle changed hands several times, despite Edward's charter having made it a permanent part of the Duchy. Richard's government gave the castle to John, the Duke of Brittany, in 1378, in exchange for the Château de Brest. Richard subsequently gave the reversion of the castle first to his uncle Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, in 1386, and then to another uncle, Edmund, Duke of York in 1397. Shortly after Richard was overthrown, the courts declared these grants to have been illegal, and returned the castle to the Duchy in 1403, then in the possession of the future Henry V.

15th – 18th centuries
In the 15th and early 16th centuries, Castle Rising continued to be owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. Although the castle's military defences were mobilised by Henry VI in 1461 during the Wars of the Roses, it became increasingly more prominent as a hunting facility. The role of the constable of the castle was often combined with that of the surveyor or ranger of Rising Chase, the parkland around the castle. The castle may have been a prestigious location during this period, although its facilities were not as extensive as those of other castles and manors known for their hunting. Senior visitors to the castle included Mary Tudor, Queen of France, and Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, and its constables included nobles such as Lord Ralph de Cromwell and John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford.

Minor repairs on the castle were carried out during the period, including to the castle bridge, but the state of the property gradually declined. The old kitchens were removed in the early 15th century, and a new, larger facility constructed in their place. Once built, however, the new kitchens, along with the rest of the buildings in the inner bailey, were left to deteriorate. Reports in 1482 stated that the buildings were no longer weatherproof, and a survey carried around between 1503 and 1506 described the castle as "evyll repayred", and noted that the roof of the keep was rotten. This last survey urged that existing repair works on the buildings in the bailey be completed, but suggested that it might not be worth repairing the keep because of the excessive cost.

Despite these challenges, fresh construction work was carried out around this time. The southern range and the kitchen were pulled down, and replaced with a new set of lodgings for guests, complete with stables, although the resulting buildings were not particularly robust. Problems reappeared, and a survey between 1542 and 1543 noted that, with the exception of the new lodgings, the castle was in "greate ruin and decaye". The roof of the keep had by now collapsed, as probably had the floors of the great hall and chamber. The survey costed the necessary repairs to the crumbling walls around the inner bailey at £100. At around this time, the forebuilding of the keep was adapted to form a separate, smaller, set of chambers, and at some point after this a passageway was dug out of the walls to link these to the kitchens in the keep, by-passing the now floor-less rooms of the keep.

In 1544 Henry VIII bequeathed the castle to Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, but the property continued to decline. By the 1570s the castle and its earthworks had been allowed to become infested with rabbits, whose warrens caused extensive damage; a survey suggested that fully renovating the castle would cost £2,000, and that even if it were pulled down and sold for the value of its materials, it would only realise £66. At the end of the century, the inner bailey was finally cleared of most of its buildings; the new lodgings were pulled down, along with most of the west range and the old Norman chapel, leaving only the ruined keep, alongside the latrines and the newer chapel, although what these last two were then used for is uncertain. The foundations of the old chapel were slowly covered up by the earth defences.

During the 17th century, the ground floor of the keep – made of hardened gravel – was dug up, probably to reuse for surfacing roads or pathways. The apartments in the forebuilding were abandoned and this part of the keep fell into decay as well. In 1644, the lands surrounding the castle were disparked, bringing an end to Castle Rising Chase. In 1705 stone was stripped from the castle to help repair a nearby sluice gate.

19th – 21st centuries
Castle Rising continued to be owned by the Howard family, and in the 19th century it was inherited by Mary Howard, and her husband Fulke Greville Howard. Fulke began to undertake restoration work, excavating the basement of the keep in 1822 and repairing some of the stonework. The ground level of the inner bailey, which had built up over the years, was lowered by about 1 m: according to the contemporary archaeologist Henry Harrod, this process required thousands of loads of earth to be dug out and removed. A great deal of medieval archaeological evidence was destroyed in the process, but the work uncovered the old Norman chapel and Harrod excavated the building in 1851. Mary continued the excavation work on the castle site after Fulke's death, and restored the stonework of the chapel.

Initially the chapel was believed to be of Anglo-Saxon origin and to have been buried under the earthworks when they were first constructed. An argument then ensued between the antiquarian William Taylor, who championed the Anglo-Saxon dating for the site, and Harrod, who insisted that the chapel was in fact Norman in origin; the issue was not settled until later in the 20th century, when the Norman date was confirmed. By 1900 the castle was open to the public, overseen by a caretaker who lived in one corner of the keep, the section of which had been reroofed and turned into an apartment.

By 1958 the castle's condition had deteriorated and the Ministry of Works took legal custody of the site, although it continued to be owned by the Howard family. Conservation work took place during the 1960s, stabilising the stonework of the keep. Archaeological investigations were then carried out, focusing on the keep in 1970, the church and the earthwork defences during 1971 and 1972, and the inner bailey from 1973 to 1976. This research centred on archaeological excavations and the recording of remains; as with similar castles investigated during this period, the site was then preserved as a monument, and grass lawns laid down around the remaining stonework and foundations. Further excavations were carried out in 1987 during the construction of the ticket office beside the castle.

English Heritage took over control of the castle in 1983 and continued to operate it as a tourist attraction. In the 21st century the castle is protected by UK law as an ancient monument and a Grade I listed building. It remains in the custody of English Heritage, but since 1998 has been managed by its owner, Baron Howard of Rising.

Landscape
The fortification of Castle Rising was constructed in a carefully designed landscape. In front of the castle was the town of Castle Rising, moved to its new site when the castle was built. The settlement appears to have been laid out to a grid-plan design, possibly bounded by ditches; with the castle positioned just behind it, in a similar fashion to that at New Buckenham and Malton Castle. A dovecot and a religious house were founded nearby; both of these were important symbols of lordship at the time, and were considered essential parts of a properly established castle.

The castle's deer park, which merged into the larger Rising Chase, was positioned behind the castle in a similar way to that at Devizes Castle. The castle effectively formed an interface between the town and the park; the great hall in the keep faced the settlement, and the lord's chamber overlooked the park, creating a symbolic divide between the public and private aspects of the building.

Rising Chase was around 16 mi in circumference, enclosing around 20 sqmi. It utilised marginal farm-land, which may have contributed to its design; the heathland and light woodland south of the castle would have been ideal for grazing deer. The park was also designed with aesthetics in mind, being shaped so that its boundaries stretched beyond the horizon when viewed from the keep, in a similar design to that at Framlingham, Ludgershall and Okehampton Castles. Indeed, while the park would originally have provided the castle venison and other products, it was probably more ornamental than practical in character, including a space of open grazing in the centre of the park, designed to be visible from the castle chamber. The castle also incorporated a large rabbit warren, an important source of food and fur in this period, which stretched 5 km away south-west from the castle.

Baileys
Castle Rising is made up of two rectangular baileys to the west and east, and an oval inner bailey in the middle, each with their own substantial earthwork defences and ditches. The earthworks of Castle Rising cover a total area of 5 ha, and are considered by archaeologists Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham to be among the most impressive in Britain. The interior of the western bailey has been levelled up to form a platform, and is no longer directly connected to the rest of the castle. The eastern bailey is 82 m by 59 m across, and formed a protective buffer, covering the entrance way to the inner bailey.

A stone bridge connects the eastern bailey to the inner bailey, and is 24 m across, still retaining some of its original stonework at its base, although the remainder of it has since been rebuilt many times. The bridge leads onto a stone gatehouse, dating from around 1138; when it was first built it was substantially taller and longer than today. It was originally equipped with a portcullis, and a stone barbican was later built outside it for additional protection.

Beyond the gatehouse is the inner bailey, which forms a ringwork 73 m by 60 m in size, with a circumference of 320 m; the banks are now 18 m high from the bottom of the defensive ditch, although they were originally only half this height. It is uncertain what was placed around the top of this bank when it first built; there may have been a wooden palisade, or possibly a timber revetment. Some of the remains of the 14th-century brick wall, built on an additional 1 m layer of limed sand for stability, have survived along part of the bank. There were three towers built along the walls during the medieval period, two of which have left their mark in the earth banks; the location of the third is uncertain.

The main architectural focus of the inner bailey was the great keep, but it also contained a Norman chapel and, from at least the 14th century onwards, a complex of smaller residential and service buildings. The visible stone foundations on the north side of the keep belong to the chapel and range built for Queen Isabella around 1330. The bailey well can also still be seen.

On the north side of the bailey are the remains of the Norman chapel, which comprised a nave, a square tower and an apsidal chancel, 12.7 metres by 6 metres (42 ft by 20 ft), 4 metres square (13 ft square) and 4.6 metres by 4 metres (15 ft by 13 ft) respectively. It was built from local grey sandstone, and Roman tiles from one of the nearby villas were used to construct its roof and incorporated into the walls. Originally the tower would have had a church bell, and the casting pit for this is buried under the floor of the nave. A stone bench runs around the base of the walls, and in the 19th century there was also a stone base for a font in the nave, but this has since been lost. A piece of early medieval graffiti, possibly depicting a Norman soldier, has survived on the south exterior wall. A fireplace was added to the chapel during the Tudor period, although this was only in use for a few years before being abandoned.

Keep

Historians Beric Morley and David Gurney consider Castle Rising to have "one of the finest of all Norman keeps". It is an early example of the longer, oblong form of these buildings, called a hall-keep, and would have taken huge resources to erect. Externally, it resembles Henry I's keeps at Norwich and Falaise, although Norwich appears to have inspired the latter design, and Rising's internal layout was probably based on that at Norwich as well. In imitating Norwich, which was then the only royal castle in the county, Castle Rising may have been intended to symbolise D'Albini's loyalty to the Crown during the troubled years of the Anarchy.

The keep is built from courses of local, brown carrstone rubble with oolite ashlar facings, and is strengthened with intramural timbers, laid down within the stone walls to reinforce the structure. Its main body is 24 m by 21 m wide, with walls approximately 15 m high, with a forebuilding running along the east side. It has prominent pilaster buttresses, giving the keep what Sidney Toy describes as an "impression of strength and dignity"; the corners have clasping buttresses, forming four turrets. There is extensive Romanesque detail on the outside of the keep, including arcading along the west side and decorative stonework on the forebuilding.

The interior of the keep is divided by an internal wall to improve its structural strength, the division running north–south through the building. The basement of the keep has two main sections, the north room 18 m by 8 m, with pillars supporting the great hall above, and the south chamber 18 m by 5 m in size. The forebuilding leads from the ground to the first floor, up a passageway 2.4 m wide with 34 steps and through three arched doorways. At the top is a waiting room; the glazed windows are a mixture of Tudor and more modern insertions.

On the first floor is the great hall, 14 m by 7 m, now floorless and open to the sky. Its original entrance way was blocked up by a chimney when the forebuilding was converted into a separate apartment in the Tudor period, and an additional entrance way inserted into the castle wall. The fireplace itself was later filled in with Tudor tiles around 1840. A mural passageway, dug out in the Tudor period, leads through to the kitchen and service quarters. On the southern side is the great chamber with a large, original 12th-century fireplace, and a mixture of original tri-lobed windows and 19th-century additions. At the far end of the great chamber is an ornate chapel, with Norman arcading and arching. The keep was originally built to have been relatively self-contained, and would not have needed many additional outbuildings to function as a residence.

The second floor of the keep is limited in space, and contains only one small room above the chapel which was possibly used the chaplain or by castle guards. The forebuilding was later equipped with an additional room on this level, 4.8 m by 4.8 m, which remained inhabited longer than the rest of the castle keep, and which contains a 19th-century fireplace. The upper 3.7 m of the keep's walls are different in design to the main body of the building; as described above, this may be the result of either a final phase of construction between 1200 and 1230, or a period of repair and renovation shortly after 1300.

Utility and symbolism
Many 20th-century historians have stressed the potential military strength of Castle Rising; R. Allen Brown, for example, concluded that "defence ... was the overwhelming consideration in [its] design and construction", and argued that the keep would have been used as a final refuge in the case of attack during a siege. Beric Morley and David Gurney believe that the military strength of the castle could not have failed to impress contemporaries. Sidney Toy suggested that the forebuilding would have made an effective defensive feature, enabling the defenders to attack intruders as they made their way up the stairs, with Morley and Gurney describing it as "a deadly and near impregnable approach to the castle's interior".

Despite this, the defensive qualities of Castle Rising have since been extensively debated. The historian Robert Liddiard argues that the large windows at Castle Rising would have been a significant weakness, as it would have been easy to fire arrows through them from the bailey, and George Garnett has questioned the utility of the defensive arrow slits, which he suggests were not well positioned or designed. The whole site was also overlooked by higher ground, which Liddiard considers would have been a key defensive weakness.

Great keeps such as Castle Rising's were also important ceremonially and symbolically in the 12th century, however, and historian Thomas Heslop has described Castle Rising as "a fortress palace", with the keep forming the palace, and the surrounding earthworks the more practical defences. They reflected lordly status: typically their owners had recently advanced up the social scale, as with William d'Aubigny, and were keen to impress others with their new authority.

With this in mind, the positioning of Castle Rising may have exposed it to higher ground, but it also made it strikingly prominent across the valley. The whole entrance to the castle was also designed to communicate to a visitor the status of the castle lord. As they came through the gatehouse and past the earthworks into the bailey, the south side of the forebuilding - deliberately facing the entrance - would have been revealed, covered in fashionable carving and decorative features. Visitors would then have walked up the stairs of the forebuilding, have paused in a waiting room, originally largely open to the elements, before being allowed through a decorative entrance door. The doorway led into the great hall, from where the lord, possibly sat in a throne alcove to the left, would have met the visitor.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Castle Rising Castle


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Geothermal power in Iceland

Geothermal power in Iceland refers to the use of geothermal energy in Iceland for electricity generation.

Iceland's uniquely active geology has led to natural conditions especially suitable for harnessing geothermal energy. Icelanders have long used geothermal energy for direct applications, such as heating homes and baths. The more recent, widespread adoption of geothermal energy as an energy source in Iceland was spawned by a need to stabilize energy prices and increase energy independence, allowing Iceland to increase reliance on geothermal energy for direct applications alongside electricity generation and contributing significantly to diminishing Iceland's carbon footprint.

The growth of geothermal power in Iceland is due to its continued support from the Icelandic government. As of 2020, Iceland’s installed geothermal power production capacity is 799 megawatts (MW). Geothermal energy produces over a quarter of Iceland's total electricity.

Geology
Iceland's territory is some of the most geologically active on Earth. The country straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (a rift between continental plates), and lies over a volcanic hotspot. This combination of factors has led to pronounced volcanism and geothermal activity. Furthermore, the island also possesses underground water reservoirs continually replenished by rain. Magma underneath the island heats these reservoirs to hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit. At least 25 such geothermal aquifers lie within the volcanic zone. These natural conditions in Iceland are favorable for geothermal power production.

Geothermal energy in Iceland
Geothermal energy has been employed by Icelanders since the Viking Age, with initial uses including washing and bathing. Later, it began to be used to heat homes, greenhouses, and swimming pools, as well as to keep streets and sidewalks free of snow and ice. Today, at least 90% of all homes in Iceland are heated with geothermal energy.

The Blue Lagoon is a prominent example of a geothermal bath. With a mix of seawater and discharge freshwater from the nearby Svartsengi Power Station, the Blue Lagoon is 5,000 square meters in size and is Iceland's most popular tourist attraction.

While geothermal energy has had many uses in Iceland throughout history, its use there for electricity generation did not come until relatively recently. Iceland's power was largely derived from fossil fuels until the 1970s, when the national government looked to address energy price inequities across the country. A report commissioned in 1970 by the country's National Energy Authority, Orkustofnun, recommended increased domestic production of geothermal power and hydroelectricity to stabilize energy prices and reduce the nation's reliance on external energy resources. In 1973, an international energy crisis began, subjecting Iceland to highly volatile oil prices and an uncertain energy market. The crisis sparked Iceland's government to ramp up adoption of the domestic power sources identified by the National Energy Authority's report. The ensuing rapid growth of renewable energy production mostly originated from a geopolitical desire for energy independence and was catalyzed by the urgent economic constraints during the 1970s energy crisis. Since then, in addition to increasing Iceland's energy independence, it has also resulted in the widespread decarbonization of the country's electric grid.

Government policy
Iceland's government policies strongly encourage the usage of renewable energy resources in power production. These policies stem from energy issues that the country had faced in years past; in the 1970s, for example, Iceland's government responded to increasing oil prices by replacing oil with geothermal energy in district heating. As a result, the cost of heating was decreased significantly, and compared to most other countries, was much lower.

As progress continued on geothermal energy projects and investments, the National Energy Authority laid out their master plan to implement the use of geothermal energy in two phases. The first phase was conducted during 1999–2003, which primarily focused on data gathering. The second phase was conducted during 2004–2009, where the first half of those years was spent on further research and the second half spent on evaluating geothermal fields. A total of 24 potential geothermal projects were considered under the master plan. Today, many of these projects are still under consideration by the Icelandic Parliament.

The government still faces issues with providing all households with accessibility to geothermal power, as there remain villages and rural areas that lack geothermal heating infrastructure. To combat this issue, Iceland's government is continuously engaging in exploration activities for the villages and rural areas to explore possible locations for geothermal energy infrastructure. In 2019, the construction of a 20-km hot water transmission pipeline from a geothermal field to the town of Höfn was constructed to replace electricity as their source of heating for 1,800 people.

Iceland's government has also put effort into foreign policies and investments that encourage other nations to harness renewable energy such as geothermal power. One of Iceland's foreign efforts is the African Rift Geothermal Development Facility Project, which began in 2010, and is performed in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda. Iceland has also helped train geothermal engineers from around the world through the United Nations University Geothermal Training Programme.

Consumption
As Iceland is situated in a highly geothermal location, 70.38% of total energy used in the country comes from geothermal sources as of 2020. This means 173.2 petajoules (PJ) of the total 246.1 PJ of primary energy used by Iceland in 2020 is from a geothermal source. The geothermal energy is then used in two main ways: direct application and indirectly via electricity generation.

Direct applications
Most geothermal energy in Iceland is used for heating activities. As of 2020, the primary use of geothermal heat is space heating (23,094 terajoules [TJ]), followed by heated swimming pools (3,628 TJ), snow melting (2,036 TJ), fish farming (1,404 TJ), greenhouses (429 TJ), and industry usage (393 TJ). As these uses are reliant solely on geothermal heat, they do not result in the energy losses that come with generating electricity. Instead, many of these direct applications use water as the means of transmission. In Iceland's capital Reykjavík, hot water from 100° to 300°C is used to heat homes, then piped into plastic tubing underneath streets and sidewalks at 30 C to melt snow and ice.

Electricity generation
Iceland has recently been self-sufficient in producing electricity, consistently meeting or exceeding electricity demand in the country mainly through geothermal and hydropower generation. In 2020, 99.94% of electricity in Iceland was produced by hydro and geothermal means, with 13,157 and 5,961 gigawatt hours (GWh) produced respectively. Geothermal energy accounts for over a quarter of Iceland's electric power production.

However, after the droughts in the summer season of 2021, low reservoir levels for hydropower generation along with increasing electricity demand in the nation led to an electricity supply crunch. To suppress electricity demand, the Icelandic government had to cut back electricity from certain industries. This supply crunch caused by fluctuations in hydropower generation has Iceland considering the expansion of power generation infrastructure.

Electricity production infrastructure
According to the National Energy Authority of Iceland, in 2020, Iceland's geothermal facilities had in total an installed capacity of 799 MWe, making up 25.9% of all power capacity in Iceland, besides hydropower, wind, and fossil fuels. According to Askja Energy Partners, an energy consulting firm in Iceland, the three entities that own and operate the largest geothermal power stations in Iceland are HS Orka, ON Power, and Landsvirkjun (National Power Company of Iceland).

The following are nine power plants that contribute the most to Iceland's geothermal power production capacity; the ownership of each geothermal power plant is also noted: In Reykjavík, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) emitted from two nearby geothermal power plants, Hellisheiði and Nesjavellir, may have impacted residents' health. Research conducted by the University of Iceland in 2012 found that weather events favorable for H2S concentrations in Reykjavík greater than the national 24-hour health limit of 50 μg m−3 can be expected to occur twice a year on average.

Iceland is also investing in geothermal energy research projects like the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP). If successful, the technology being developed by IDDP could produce ten times more power than current geothermal power technology. By drilling more than 15,000 feet (4.5 km) deep into the volcanic fields in Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula, researchers are hoping to investigate the use of supercritical fluids for harnessing geothermal energy. If achieved, projects like IDDP will allow a greater portion of Iceland's electricity to be generated by geothermal means.

title: Geothermal power in Iceland


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Heterosexualism

Heterosexualism may refer to:
 * Heterosexism, a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships
 * Heterosexuality, romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between persons of the opposite sex or gender

title: Heterosexualism


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Batu Caves

Batu Caves (பத்து மலை) is a mogote with a series of limestone caves in Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia. It is located about 13 km north of the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. The cave complex consists many Hindu temples, the popular of which is a shrine dedicated to Hindu god Murugan. It is the focal point of the Tamil festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia. The complex also hosts of a 43 m high Murugan statue, one of the largest Murugan statues in the world.

Etymology
The name for the cave complex is derived from the Batu Pahat River which flows nearby. The word batu is derived from Malay meaning "rock". The hill was called as "Kapal Tanggang" (ship of Si Tanggang) as per the Malay folktale Malin Kundang. In Tamil, the temple complex is called as Pathu malai (பத்து மலை).

History
The caves were used as shelters by the indigenous Temuan people, a tribe of Orang Asli. In the 1860s, Chinese settlers began excavating guano from the caves, used as fertilisers. In 1878, the caves were discovered by American naturalist William Hornaday. K. Thamboosamy, an Indian Tamil trader, promoted the cave complex as a site of Hindu worship. A Hindu temple dedicated to lord Murugan was completed in 1891 with the annual Thaipusam celebrations commencing in 1892. Further development of religious sites have happened ever since in the region. Housing development around the region began in the late 20th century with non-governmental organisations expressing concerns about the over-development.

Geology
The complex is a mogote with a series of limestone caves, formed more than 400 million years ago. It consists of a complex cave system of 20 recognized caves including four large cave systems with multiple inter-connected chambers.

The speleothems were formed by the action of water falling on the surface percolating through the surface and interacting with the sub surface, resulting in dissolution of limestone rocks, resulting in the formation of stalactites and stalagmites. Stalactites jutting from the ceiling and stalagmites rising from the floor form intricate formations of cave curtains, flowstones, cave pearls and scallops. The interiors would have been damp and wet when the caves were being formed.

Biodiversity
The Batu cave system and its caverns is a biodiversity hotspot consisting of many plant and animal species, many of which are specific to such limestone environments. About 269 species of vascular plants including 56 species (21%) of calciphiles have been recorded from the site. There are a diverse range of cave fauna, including endemic species such as the trapdoor spider Liphistius batuensis. There are 21 species of bats, including several species of fruit bats. The dark cave system is home to numerous species of insects including haplotaxids, spiders, mites, ticks, scorpions, springtails, beetles, fliers, ants, wasps, bees, butterflies, moths and other animals such as frogs, lizards, snakes and snails.

The site is also home to numerous long-tailed macaques. The monkeys often depend on people for food and might cause disturbance or nuisance. To preserve the cave's ecology, access is restricted in the inner cave complex which can be accessed by the educational trips organized by the Malaysian Nature Society. Development over the years, industrial activity and the high number of footfalls due to the religious site are threats to the biodiversity in the region.

Religious site
The similarity of the entrance to the cave structure to a vel (a spear) wielded by the deity Murugan is said to have inspired Thamboosamy to build a temple. The Subramaniar Swamy temple is located in the largest cave in the complex. Initially, the hill has to be climbed upon by foot to reach the shrine. In 1920, wooden steps were installed to enable the pilgrims to reach the temple. In the 1930s, the stairs began to show signs of wear, and a decision was made to build concrete steps on the southern side of the cave complex. In 1940, 272 concrete steps were constructed, which exist till date. In August 2018, the steps were re-painted with each set of particular number of steps painted in a different color. In 2024, plans were unveiled to build a multi-purpose hall in the foothills and an escalator to the temple.

At the base of the hill are two caves, Art Gallery Cave and Museum Cave, which form the Cave Villa complex. These consist of statues and paintings from Hindu mythology, most of them relating to life and stories of Murugan. The Ramayana Cave is situated to the left, which consists of paintings from the Hindu epic Ramayana. There is a 15 m tall statue of Hanuman at the entrance and a temple dedicated to Hanuman, opened in November 2001.

To the right of the steps which serve as an entrance to the cave complex, a 42.7 m tall statue of Murugan was unveiled in January 2006. Painted in gold, it is the amongst the tallest Murugan statue in the world and the tallest statue in Malaysia.

Festivals
The Batu Caves serve as the focal point of the yearly Thaipusam (தைபூசம்) festival, celebrated by Tamil Hindus. The temple attracts thousands of people for the elaborate festivities. Kavadi Aattam is a ceremonial act of sacrifice and offering practiced by devotees, which forms a central part of the festival. Kavadi (meaning "burden" in Tamil) itself is a physical burden, which usually consists of two semicircular pieces of wood or steel which are bent and attached to a cross structure in its simplest form, that is balanced on the shoulders of the devotee and signifies a form of debt bondage. Worshipers often carry pot(s) of cow milk as an offering (paal kudam). The most extreme and spectacular practice is the carrying of Vel kavadi, a portable altar decorated with peacock feathers and flowers, that is attached to the body of the devotee through multiple skewers and metal hooks pierced into the skin on the chest and back.

People also do a form of mortification of the flesh by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with vel skewers and flagellation. Vibuthi, a type of holy ash is spread across the body including the piercing sites. Drumming and chanting of verses help the devotees enter a state of trance. Devotees usually prepare for the rituals by keeping clean, doing regular prayers, following a vegetarian diet and fasting while remaining celibate for 48 days. A procession begins in the morning on Thaipusam from the Sri Mahamariamman Temple, Kuala Lumpur. A silver chariot weighing 350 kg carrying the idols of Murugan with his consorts Valli and Deivanai is taken along the procession, accompanies by the devotees. After ritual bathing in the nearby Sungai Batu River, the devotees make their way to the temple.

Rock climbing

The cave complex which exists on a hillock is a place for rock climbing. There are nearly 160 climbing routes on the north-eastern side of the cave complex, called as Damai caves. The routes are scattered across the sides with hills rising to 150 m. These climbing routes can be accessed from the ground level with abseiling and spelunking trips organised by local companies.

Transportation
Batu Caves can be reached by taking the commuter train from KL Sentral in Kuala Lumpur to the Batu Caves Komuter station. Batu Caves may also be reached by bus 11 from Bangkok Bank stop near Central Market. Batu Caves can also be reached by car.

title: Batu Caves


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Cardiff Castle

Cardiff Castle (Castell Caerdydd) is a medieval castle and Victorian Gothic revival mansion located in the city centre of Cardiff, Wales. The original motte and bailey castle was built in the late 11th century by Norman invaders on top of a 3rd-century Roman fort. The castle was commissioned either by William the Conqueror or by Robert Fitzhamon, and formed the heart of the medieval town of Cardiff and the Marcher Lord territory of Glamorgan. In the 12th century the castle began to be rebuilt in stone, probably by Robert of Gloucester, with a shell keep and substantial defensive walls being erected. Further work was conducted by the 6th Earl of Gloucester in the second half of the 13th century. Cardiff Castle was repeatedly involved in the conflicts between the Anglo-Normans and the Welsh, being attacked several times in the 12th century, and stormed in 1404 during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr.

After being held by the de Clare and Despenser families for several centuries, the castle was acquired by the 13th Earl of Warwick in 1423. Warwick conducted extensive work on the castle, founding the main range on the west side of the castle, dominated by a tall octagonal tower. Following the Wars of the Roses, the status of the castle as a Marcher territory was revoked and its military significance began to decline. The Herbert family took over the property in 1550, remodelling parts of the main range and carrying out construction work in the outer bailey, then occupied by Cardiff's Shire Hall and other buildings. During the English Civil War Cardiff Castle was initially taken by a Parliamentary force, but was regained by Royalist supporters in 1645. When fighting broke out again in 1648, a Royalist army attacked Cardiff in a bid to regain the castle, leading to the Battle of St Fagans just outside the city. Cardiff Castle escaped potential destruction by Parliament after the war and was instead garrisoned, probably to protect against a possible Scottish invasion.

In the mid-18th century, Cardiff Castle passed into the hands of the Stuart dynasty, Marquesses of Bute. The 1st Marquess of Bute employed Capability Brown and Henry Holland to renovate the main range, turning it into a Georgian mansion, and to landscape the castle grounds, demolishing many of the older medieval buildings and walls. During the first half of the 19th century the family became extremely wealthy as a result of the growth of the coal industry in Glamorgan. However, it was the 3rd Marquess of Bute who truly transformed the castle, using his vast wealth to back an extensive programme of renovations under William Burges. Burges remodelled the castle in a Gothic revival style, lavishing money and attention on the main range. The resulting interior designs are considered to be amongst "the most magnificent that the gothic revival ever achieved". The grounds were re-landscaped and, following the discovery of the old Roman remains, reconstructed walls and a gatehouse in a Roman style were incorporated into the castle design. Extensive landscaped parks were built around the outside of the castle.

In the early 20th century, the 4th Marquess of Bute inherited the castle and construction work continued into the 1920s. The Bute lands and commercial interests around Cardiff were sold off or nationalised until, by the time of the Second World War, little was left except the castle. During the war, extensive air raid shelters were built in the castle walls; they could hold up to 1,800 people. When the 4th Marquess died in 1947, the castle was given to the City of Cardiff. Today the castle is run as a tourist attraction, with the grounds housing the "Firing Line" regimental museum and interpretation centre. The castle also serves as a venue for events, including musical performances and festivals.

1st–4th centuries AD
The future site of Cardiff Castle was first used by the Romans as a defensive location for many years. The first fort was probably built about AD 55 and occupied until AD 80. It was a rectangular structure much larger than the current site, and formed part of the southern Roman border in Wales during the conquest of the Silures. When the border advanced, defences became less important and the fort was replaced with a sequence of two, much smaller, fortifications on the north side of the current site.

A fourth fort was built in the middle of the 3rd century in order to combat the pirate threat along the coast, and forms the basis of the Roman remains seen on the castle site. The fort was almost square in design, approximately 635 ft by 603 ft large, constructed from limestone brought by sea from Penarth. The fort's irregular shape was determined by the River Taff that flowed along the west side of the walls. The sea would have come much closer to the site than is the case in the 21st century, and the fort would have directly overlooked the harbour. This Roman fort was probably occupied at least until the end of the 4th century, but it is unclear when it was finally abandoned. There is no evidence for the re-occupation of the site until the 11th century.

11th century
The Normans began to make incursions into South Wales from the late 1060s onwards, pushing westwards from their bases in recently occupied England. Their advance was marked by the construction of castles, frequently on old Roman sites, and the creation of regional lordships. The reuse of Roman sites produced considerable savings in the manpower required to construct large earth fortifications.

Cardiff Castle was built during this period. There are two possible dates for the construction: William the Conqueror may have built a castle at Cardiff as early as 1081 on his return from his pilgrimage to St Davids. Alternatively, the first Norman fortification may have been constructed around 1091 by Robert Fitzhamon, the lord of Gloucester. Fitzhamon invaded the region in 1090, and used the castle as a base for the occupation of the rest of southern Glamorgan over the next few years. The site was close to the sea and could be easily supplied by ship, was well protected by the Rivers Taff and Rhymney and also controlled the old Roman road running along the coast.

Cardiff Castle was a motte-and-bailey design. The old Roman walls had collapsed and the Normans used their remains as the basis for the outer castle perimeter, digging a defensive trench and throwing up a 27 ft high bank of earth over the Roman fortifications. The Normans further divided the castle with an internal wall to form an inner and an outer bailey. In the north-west corner of the castle a wooden keep was constructed on top of a 40 ft tall earth motte, surrounded by a 30 ft wide moat. The motte was the largest built in Wales. The overall area of the castle was around 8.25 acre; the inner bailey was around 2 acre in area. Mills were essential to local communities during this period, and the castle mill was located outside the west side of the castle, fed by the River Taff; under local feudal law, the residents of Cardiff were required to use this mill to grind their own grain.

The conquered lands in Glamorgan were given out in packages called knights' fees, and many of these knights held their lands on condition that they provided forces to protect Cardiff Castle. Under this approach, called a castle-guard system, some knights were required to maintain buildings called "houses" within the castle itself, in the outer bailey. Anglo-Saxon peasants settled the region around Cardiff, bringing with them English customs, although Welsh lords continued to rule the more remote districts almost independently until the 14th century. Cardiff Castle was a Marcher Lord territory, enjoying special privileges and independence from the English Crown. The medieval town of Cardiff spread out from the south side of the castle.

12th–14th centuries
FitzHamon was fatally injured at the Battle of Tinchebray in 1106 and died shortly afterwards. Henry I then gave the castle in 1122 to Robert of Gloucester, the king's illegitimate son and the husband of FitzHamon's daughter, Mabe. After the failed attempt of Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror's eldest son, to take England from Henry I, the duke was moved here in 1126 from imprisonment at Devizes and remained imprisoned in the castle until his death in 1134. Robert of Gloucester held the castle during the troubled years of the Anarchy in England and Wales, and passed it on to his son, William Fitz Robert. Around the middle of the century, possibly under Robert of Gloucester, a 77 ft wide, 30 ft high shell keep was constructed on top of the motte, along with a stone wall around the south and west sides of the inner bailey. The polygonal shell keep has architectural links to a similar design at Arundel Castle. The building work was probably undertaken in response to the threat posed following the Welsh uprising of 1136.

Tensions with the Welsh continued, and in 1158 Ifor Bach raided the castle and took William hostage for a period. A further attack followed in 1183. By 1184 town walls had been built around Cardiff, and the West Gate to the town was constructed in the gap between the castle and the river. William died in 1183, leaving three daughters. One of these, Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, was declared the sole heir to the estate by Henry II. This was contrary to legal custom in England, and was done in order that Henry could then marry her to his youngest son Prince John and thus provide him with extensive lands. John later divorced Isabel, but he retained control of the castle until she married Geoffrey de Mandeville in 1214.

Upon Isabel's death in 1217 the castle passed through her sister to Gilbert de Clare, becoming part of the Honour of Clare, a major grouping of estates and fortifications in medieval England. The castle formed the centre of the family's power in South Wales, although the de Clares typically preferred to reside in their castles at Clare and Tonbridge. Gilbert's son, Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester, carried out building work at the castle in the late 13th century, constructing the Black Tower that forms part of the southern gateway seen today. On the ground floor the tower contained the Stavell Oged and Stavell Wenn chambers, with three rooms constructed above them. Richard was also probably responsible for rebuilding the northern and eastern walls of the inner bailey in stone. The inner bailey was reached through a gatehouse on the eastern side, protected by two circular towers and later called the Exchequer Gate. The defensive work may have been prompted by the threat posed by the hostile Welsh leader Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales.

Richard's grandson, Gilbert de Clare, the last male de Clare, died at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and the castle was given to Hugh Despenser the Younger, the controversial favourite of Edward II. Poor harvests and harsh governance by the Despenser family encouraged a Welsh rebellion under Llywelyn Bren in 1316; this was crushed and Llywelyn was hanged, drawn and quartered in Cardiff Castle in 1318 on Hugh's orders. The execution attracted much criticism from across both the English and Welsh communities, and in 1321 Hugh arrested Sir William Fleminge as a scapegoat for the incident, first detaining him in the Black Tower and then executing him in the castle grounds. Conflict between the Despensers and the other Marcher Lords broke out soon after, leading to the castle being sacked in 1321 during the Despenser War. The Despensers recovered the castle and retained it for the rest of the century, despite the execution of Hugh Despenser for treason in 1326. Under a 1340 charter granted by the Despensers, the castle's constable was made the de facto mayor of Cardiff, controlling the local courts.

15th–16th centuries
By the 15th century, the Despensers were increasingly using Caerphilly Castle as their main residence in the region rather than Cardiff. Thomas le Despenser was executed in 1400 on charges of conspiring against Henry IV. In 1401 rebellion broke out in North Wales under the leadership of Owain Glyndŵr, quickly spreading across the rest of the country. In 1404 Cardiff and the castle were taken by the rebels, causing considerable damage to the Black Tower and the southern gatehouse in the process. On Thomas's death the castle passed first to his young son, Richard, and on his death in 1414, through his daughter Isabel to the Beauchamp family. Isabel first married Richard de Beauchamp, the Earl of Worcester and then, on his death, to his cousin Richard de Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick, in 1423.

Richard did not acquire Caerphilly Castle as part of the marriage settlement, so he set about redeveloping Cardiff instead. He built a new tower alongside the Black Tower in 1430, restoring the gateway, and extended the motte defences. He also constructed a substantial new domestic range in the south-west of the site between 1425 and 1439, with a central octagonal tower 75 ft high, sporting defensive machicolations, and featuring four smaller polygonal turrets facing the inner bailey. The range was built of Lias ashlar stone with limestone used for some of the details, set upon the spur bases characteristic of South Wales and incorporated parts of the older 4th and 13th century walls. The buildings were influenced by similar work in the previous century at Windsor Castle and would in turn shape renovations at Newport and Nottingham Castles; the octagonal tower has architectural links to Guy's Tower, built at around the same time in Warwick Castle. A flower garden was built to the south of the range, with private access to Richard's chambers. Richard also rebuilt the town's wider defences, including a new stone bridge over the River Taff guarded by the West Gate, finishing the work by 1451.

Cardiff Castle remained in the hands of Richard's son Henry and Henry's daughter Anne until 1449. When Anne died, it passed by marriage to Richard Neville, who held it until his death in 1471 during the period of civil strife known as the Wars of the Roses. As the conflict progressed and political fortunes rose and fell, the castle passed from George, the Duke of Clarence, to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to Jasper Tudor, the Duke of Bedford, back to Richard Neville's wife Anne, back to Jasper and finally to Prince Henry, the future Henry VIII. The ascension of the Tudor dynasty to the English throne at the end of the wars heralded a change in the way Wales was administered. The Tudors were Welsh in origin, and their rule eased hostilities between the Welsh and English. As a result, defensive castles became less important. In 1495 Henry VII formally revoked the Marcher territory status of Cardiff Castle and the surrounding territories, bringing them under normal English law as the County of Glamorgan.

The Crown leased the castle to Charles Somerset in 1513; Charles used it while he was living in Cardiff. In 1550 William Herbert, later the Earl of Pembroke, then bought Cardiff Castle and the surrounding estates from Edward VI. The outer bailey contained a range of buildings at this time, and extensive building work was carried out during the century. The Shire Hall had been built in the outer bailey, forming part of a walled complex of buildings that included the lodgings for the traditional twelve holders of castle-guard lands. The outer bailey also included orchards, gardens and a chapel. The castle continued to be used to detain criminals during the 16th century, with the Black Tower being used as a prison to hold them; the heretic Thomas Capper was burnt at the castle on the orders of Henry VIII. The visiting antiquarian John Leland described the keep as "a great thing and strong, but now in some ruine", but the Black Tower was considered to be in good repair. In the inner bailey, the Herberts built an Elizabethan extension to the north end of the main range, with large windows looking onto a new northern garden; the southern garden was replaced by a kitchen garden.

17th–18th centuries
In 1610 the cartographer John Speed produced a map of the castle, and noted that it was "large and in good repair." In 1642, however, civil war broke out between the rival Royalist supporters of King Charles I and Parliament. Cardiff Castle was then owned by Philip Herbert, a moderate Parliamentarian, and the castle was initially held by a pro-Royalist garrison. It was taken by Parliamentary forces in the early period of the war, according to popular tradition by a sneak attack using a secret passageway. The Royalist commander William Seymour, the Marquess of Hertford, then attacked the castle in turn, taking it in a surprise assault. Parliamentary forces and local troops then immediately besieged the castle, retaking it after five hours of fighting and reinstalling a garrison. In early 1645 Mr Carne, the High Sheriff, rebelled against Parliament, taking Cardiff town but initially failing to seize the castle. The King sent forces from Oxford, under the command of Sir Charles Kemys, to reinforce Carne but Parliament despatched a naval squadron to provide support to their forces from the sea. A small battle ensued before the castle was taken by the Royalists.

With the Royalist military position across the country worsening, King Charles himself came to Cardiff Castle that July to meet with local Welsh leaders. Relations between his commander in the region, Sir Charles Gerard, and the people of Glamorgan had deteriorated badly and when Charles left the castle, he was confronted by a small army of angry locals, demanding to be given control of the castle. These clubmen then declared themselves the "Peaceable Army" and increased their demands to include near independence for the region. After negotiations, a compromise was found in which the royal garrison would quit the castle, to be replaced by a local Glamorgan force, commanded by Sir Richard Beaupré; in return, £800 and a force of a thousand men were promised to Charles. In September, Charles returned to South Wales and reneged on the agreement, disbanding the Peaceable Army, but his military position in the region was collapsing. The Peaceable Army's leaders switched sides and forced the surrender of Cardiff and the castle to Parliament in mid-September.

With the outbreak of fresh fighting in 1648, a Royalist army of 8,000 fresh recruits was mustered under the command of General Rowland Laugharne and Sir Edward Stradling, with the intent of retaking Cardiff. Parliamentary forces in Brecon under the command of Colonel Thomas Horton moved quickly to reinforce the castle, although with only 3,000 men they were content to wait until a larger army under Oliver Cromwell could arrive from Gloucester. With time against them, the Royalist army attacked, leading to the battle of St Fagans just to the west of Cardiff, and a heavy Royalist defeat.

After the war, Cardiff Castle escaped the slighting, or deliberate damage and destruction, that affected many other castles. Probably because of the threat of a pro-Royalist invasion by the Presbyterian Scots, a Parliamentary garrison was installed instead and the castle remained intact. The Herberts continued to own the castle as the Earls of Pembroke, both during the interregnum and after the restoration of Charles II. The castle's constable continued to act as mayor of the town of Cardiff, controlling the meetings of the town's burgesses, bailiffs and aldermen; the Herberts usually appointed members of the more important local gentry to this position during the period.

Lady Charlotte Herbert was the last of the family to control Cardiff Castle. She married twice, latterly to Thomas, Viscount Windsor, and on her death in 1733 the castle passed to their son, Herbert. Herbert's daughter, Charlotte Jane Windsor, married, in November 1766, John, Lord Mount Stuart, who rose to become the Marquess of Bute in 1794, beginning a family line that would control the castle for the next century.

In 1776, Bute began to renovate the property with the intention of turning it into a residence for his son, John. The grounds were radically altered under a programme of work that involved Capability Brown and his son-in-law, Henry Holland. The stone wall that separated the inner and outer baileys was destroyed using gunpowder, the Shire Hall and the knights' houses in the outer bailey were destroyed and the remaining ground partially flattened; the whole of the area was laid with turf. Considerable work was carried out on the main lodgings, demolishing the Herbert additions, building two new wings and removing many of the older features to produce a more contemporary, 18th-century appearance. The keep and motte was stripped of the ivy and trees that had grown up them, and a spiral path was laid down around the motte. The motte's moat was filled in as part of the landscaping. A summer house was built in the south-east corner of the castle. Further work was planned on the property, including a reported proposal to roof the keep in copper, insert new windows and turn it into an assembly room for dances, but these projects were cut short by the death of Bute's son in 1794.

19th century
In 1814 Bute's grandson, John, inherited his title and the castle. In 1825 the new marquess began a sequence of investments in the Cardiff Docks, an expensive programme of work that would enable Cardiff to become a major coal exporting port. Although the docks were not particularly profitable, they transformed the value of the Butes' mining and land interests, making the family immensely wealthy. By 1900, the family estate owned 22000 acre of land in Glamorgan.

The second marquess preferred to live on the Isle of Bute in Scotland and only used Cardiff Castle occasionally. The castle saw little investment and only four full-time servants were maintained on the premises, meaning that cooked food had to be brought across from the kitchens at a nearby hotel. The castle remained at the centre of the Butes' political power base in Cardiff, however, with their faction sometimes termed "the Castle party". During the violent protests of the Merthyr Rising of 1831, the marquess based himself at Cardiff Castle, from which he directed operations and kept Whitehall informed of the unfolding events. The governance of the then town of Cardiff was finally reformed by an Act of Parliament in 1835, introducing a town council and a mayor, severing the link with the castle constable.

John, 3rd Marquess of Bute, inherited the title and castle in 1848. He was then less than a year old, and as he grew up he came to despise the existing castle, believing that it represented a mediocre, half-hearted example of the Gothic style. The young Lord Bute engaged the architect William Burges to undertake the remodelling of the castle. The two shared a passion in medieval Gothic Revivalism and this, combined with Bute's huge financial resources, enabled Burges to rebuild the property on a grand scale. Burges brought with him almost of all of the team that had supported him on earlier projects, including John Starling Chapple, William Frame and Horatio Lonsdale. Burges's contribution, in particular his research into the history of the castle and his architectural imagination, was critical to the transformation. Work began on Lord Bute's coming of age in 1868 with the construction of the 150 ft high Clock Tower. The tower, built in Burges's signature Forest of Dean ashlar stone, formed a suite of bachelor's rooms, comprising a bedroom, a servant's room and the Summer and Winter smoking rooms. Externally, the tower was a re-working of a design Burges had previously used in an unsuccessful competition entry for the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Internally, the rooms were sumptuously decorated with gildings, carvings and cartoons, many allegorical in style, depicting the seasons, myths and fables. In his A History of the Gothic Revival, written as the tower was being built, Charles Locke Eastlake wrote of Burges's "peculiar talents (and) luxuriant fancy." The Summer Smoking Room rested at the top of the structure and was two storeys high with an internal balcony that, through an unbroken band of windows, gave views of the Cardiff Docks, the Bristol Channel, and the Glamorgan countryside. The floor had a map of the world in mosaic. The sculpture was created by Thomas Nicholls.

As the rest of the castle was developed, work progressed along the rest of the 18th century range including the construction of the Guest Tower, the Arab Room, the Chaucer Room, the Nursery, the Library, the Banqueting Hall and bedrooms for both Lord and Lady Bute. In plan, the new castle followed the arrangement of a standard Victorian country house quite closely. The Bute Tower included Lord Bute's bedroom and ended in another highlight, the Roof Garden, featuring a sculpture of the Madonna and child by Ceccardo Fucigna. Bute's bedroom contained extensive religious iconography and an en-suite bathroom. The Octagon Tower followed, including an oratory, built on the spot where Bute's father died, and the Chaucer Room, the roof of which is considered by historian Mark Girouard to be a "superb example of Burges's genius". The central part of the castle comprised a two-storey banqueting hall, with the library below. Both are enormous, the latter to hold part of the bibliophile marquess's vast library. Both included elaborate carvings and fireplaces, those in the banqueting hall depicting the castle itself in the time of Robert, Duke of Normandy. The decoration here is less impressive than elsewhere in the castle, as much of it was completed after Burges's death by Lonsdale, a less talented painter. The Arab Room in the Herbert Tower remains however one of Burges's masterpieces. Its jelly mould ceiling in a Moorish style is particularly notable. It was this room on which Burges was working when he died and Bute placed Burges's initials, and his own, and the date 1881 in the fireplace as a memorial. The central portion of the castle also included the Grand Staircase, recorded in a watercolour perspective prepared by Axel Haig.

Burges's interiors at Cardiff Castle have been widely praised. The historian Megan Aldrich considers them amongst "the most magnificent that the gothic revival ever achieved", J. Mordaunt Crook has described them as "three dimensional passports to fairy kingdoms and realms of gold", and John Newman praises them as "most successful of all the fantasy castles of the nineteenth century." The exterior of the castle, however, has received a more mixed reception from critics. Crook admires the variegated and romantic silhouette of the building, but architect John Grant considered them to present a "picturesque if not happy combination" of varying historical styles, and Adrian Pettifer criticises them as "incongruous" and excessively Gothic in style.

Work was also carried out on the castle grounds, the interior being flattened further, destroying much of the medieval and Roman archaeological remains. In 1889, Lord Bute's building works uncovered the remains of the old Roman fort for the first time since the 11th century, leading to archaeological investigations being carried out in 1890. New walls in a Roman style were built by William Frame on the foundations of the originals, complete with a reconstructed Roman North Gate, and the outer medieval bank was stripped away around the new walls.

The grounds were extensively planted with trees and shrubs, including over the motte. From the late 18th century until the 1850s the castle grounds were completely open to the public, but restrictions were imposed in 1858 and as a replacement the 434 acres of land to the west and north of the castle was turned into Bute Park. From 1868, the castle grounds were closed to the public altogether. Stables were built just to the north of the castle, but only half were completed during the 19th century. The Animal Wall was built along the south side of the castle, decorated with statues of animals, and the Swiss Bridge – a combination of summerhouse and river-crossing – was erected over the river by the West Gate. Cathays Park was built on the east side of the castle, but was sold to the city of Cardiff in 1898.

20th and 21st centuries

John, the fourth marquess, acquired the castle in 1900 on the death of his father, and the family estates and investments around the castle began to rapidly reduce in size. Cardiff had grown hugely in the previous century, its population increasing from 1,870 in 1800 to around 250,000 in 1900, but the coal trade began to diminish after 1918 and industry suffered during the depression of the 1920s. John only inherited a part of the Butes' Glamorgan estates, and in the first decades of the 20th century he sold off much of the remaining assets around Cardiff, including the coal mines, docks and railway companies, with the bulk of the land interests being finally sold off or nationalised in 1938.

Development work on the castle continued. There was extensive restoration of the medieval masonry in 1921, with architect John Grant rebuilding the South Gate and the barbican tower, and reconstructing the medieval West Gate and town wall alongside the castle, with the Swiss Bridge being moved in 1927 to make room for the new West Gate development. Further archaeological investigations were carried out into the Roman walls in 1922 and 1923, leading to Grant redesigning the northern Roman gatehouse. The second half of the castle stables were finally completed. The Animal Wall was moved in the 1920s to the west side of the castle to enclose a pre-Raphaelite themed garden. The grand staircase in the main range was torn out in the 1930s. During World War II, extensive tunnels within the medieval walls were used as air-raid shelters, with eight different sections, able to hold up to 1,800 people in total, and the castle was also used to tether barrage balloons above the city.

In 1947, John, the fifth marquess, inherited the castle on the death of his father and faced considerable death duties. He sold the very last of the Bute lands in Cardiff and gave the castle and the surrounding park to the city on behalf of the people of Cardiff; the family flag was taken down from the castle as part of the official hand-over ceremony. The castle was protected as a grade I listed building and as a scheduled monument. The castle grounds are listed Grade I, jointly with Bute Park, on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.

Cardiff Castle is now run as a tourist attraction, and is one of the most popular sites in the city. The castle is not fully furnished, as the furniture and fittings in the castle were removed by the marquess in 1947 and subsequently disposed of; an extensive restoration has been carried out, however, of the fittings originally designed for the Clock Tower by Burges. The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, founded in 1949, was housed in the castle's main range for many years, but moved into the castle's former stables north of the castle in 1998. A new interpretation centre, which opened in 2008, was built alongside the South Gate at a cost of £6 million, and the castle also contains "Firing Line", the joint regimental museum of the 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards and the Royal Welsh.

The castle has been used for a range of cultural and social events. The castle has seen various musical performances, including by Westlife, Tom Jones, A-HA, Green Day and the Stereophonics, with a capacity to accommodate over 10,000 people. During the 1960s and 1970s the castle was the setting for a sequence of military tattoos.

title: Cardiff Castle


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Hart Memorial Trophy

The Hart Memorial Trophy, originally known as the Hart Trophy, is an annual award for the most valuable player to his team in the National Hockey League (NHL), voted by the members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association. The original trophy was donated to the league in 1923 by David Hart, the father of Cecil Hart, the longtime head coach of the Montreal Canadiens. The Hart Trophy has been awarded 99 times to 61 different players since its beginnings in 1923–24.

History
The Hart Memorial Trophy is named in honour of Canadian Dr. David Hart. Dr. Hart, who donated the original trophy to the NHL, was the father of Cecil Hart, a former Coach and General Manager of the Montreal Canadiens. The trophy was first awarded at the conclusion of the 1923–24 NHL season to Frank Nighbor of the original Ottawa Senators. The original Hart Trophy was retired to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1960, and the NHL began presenting a new trophy, which was dubbed the Hart Memorial Trophy in its place.

Wayne Gretzky won the award a record nine times during his career, eight consecutively. Gretzky and his Edmonton Oilers teammate Mark Messier are the only players to win the Hart Trophy with more than one team.

There have been two unanimous MVP wins; Wayne Gretzky during the 1981–1982 NHL season and Connor McDavid during the 2020–2021 NHL season.

Players from the Montreal Canadiens have won the award seventeen times; players from the Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers are second with thirteen winners. Joe Thornton became the only Hart Trophy winner to have switched clubs during his winning campaign during the 2005–06 season, having played for both the Bruins and San Jose Sharks that year. The defenseman with the most trophy victories is Eddie Shore, who has four. By contrast, it is rare for a goaltender to win the award, which has happened only eight times in its history by 7 different goaltenders; Buffalo Sabres goaltender Dominik Hasek is the only two-time winner.

Voting
The voting is conducted at the end of the regular season by members of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, and each individual voter ranks their top five candidates on a 10-7-5-3-1 point(s) system. Three finalists are named and the trophy is awarded at the NHL Awards ceremony after the playoffs.

The closest the voting for the Hart Trophy has ever come was in the 2001–02 season, when Jose Theodore and Jarome Iginla tied in the total voting. The tiebreaker for choosing the Hart Trophy winner in such a case is number of first-place votes: Theodore claimed it as he had 86 first-place votes to Iginla's 82.

title: Hart Memorial Trophy


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Class discrimination

Class discrimination, also known as classism, is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes, behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper class at the expense of the lower class. Social class refers to the grouping of individuals in a hierarchy based on wealth, income, education, occupation, and social network.

Studies show an interconnection between class discrimination and racism and sexism.

History
Class structures existed in a simplified form in pre-agricultural societies, but it has evolved into a more complex and established structure following the establishment of permanent agriculture-based civilizations with a food surplus.

Classism started to be practiced around the 18th century. Segregation into classes was accomplished through observable traits (such as race or profession) that were accorded varying statuses and privileges. Feudal classification systems might include merchant, serf, peasant, warrior, priestly, and noble classes. Rankings were far from invariant with the merchant class in Europe outranking the peasantry, while merchants were explicitly inferior to peasants during the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan. Modern classism, with less rigid class structures, is harder to identify. In a professional association posting, psychologist Thomas Fuller-Rowell states, "Experiences of [class] discrimination are often subtle rather than blatant, and the exact reason for unfair treatment is often not clear to the victim."

Intersections with other systems of oppression
Socioeconomic, racial/ethnic and gender inequalities in academic achievement have been widely reported in the United States, but how these three axes of inequality intersect to determine academic and non-academic outcomes among school-aged children is not well understood.

Institutional versus personal classism
The term classism can refer to personal prejudice against lower classes as well as to institutional classism, just as the term racism can refer either strictly to personal prejudice or to institutional racism. The latter has been defined as "the ways in which conscious or unconscious classism is manifest in the various institutions of our society".

As with social classes, the difference in social status between people determines how they behave toward each other and the prejudices they likely hold toward each other. People of higher status do not generally mix with lower-status people and often are able to control other people's activities by influencing laws and social standards.

The term "interpersonal" is sometimes used in place of "personal" as in "institutional classism (versus) interpersonal classism" and terms such as "attitude" or "attitudinal" may replace "interpersonal" as contrasting with institutional classism as in the Association of Magazine Media's definition of classism as "any attitude or institutional practice which subordinates people due to income, occupation, education and/or their economic condition".

Classism is also sometimes broken down into more than two categories as in "personal, institutional and cultural" classism. It is common knowledge in sociolinguistics that meta-social language abounds in lower registers, thus the slang for various classes or racial castes.

Structural positions
Schüssler Fiorenza describes interdependent "stratifications of gender, race, class, religion, heterosexualism, and age" as structural positions assigned at birth. She suggests that people inhabit several positions, and that positions with privilege become nodal points through which other positions are experienced. For example, in a context where gender is the primary privileged position (e.g. patriarchy, matriarchy), gender becomes the nodal point through which sexuality, race, and class are experienced. In a context where class is the primary privileged position (i.e. classism), gender and race are experienced through class dynamics. Fiorenza stresses that kyriarchy is not a hierarchical system as it does not focus on one point of domination. Instead it is described as a "complex pyramidal system" with those on the bottom of the pyramid experiencing the "full power of kyriarchal oppression". The kyriarchy is recognized as the status quo and therefore its oppressive structures may not be recognized.

To maintain this system, kyriarchy relies on the creation of a servant class, race, gender, or people. The position of this class is reinforced through "education, socialization, and brute violence and malestream rationalization". Tēraudkalns suggests that these structures of oppression are self-sustained by internalized oppression; those with relative power tend to remain in power, while those without tend to remain disenfranchised. In addition, structures of oppression amplify and feed into each other.

In the UAE, Western workers and local nationals are given better treatment or are preferred.

Media representation
Class discrimination can be seen in many different forms of media such as television shows, films and social media. Classism is also systemic, and its implications can go unnoticed in the media that is consumed by society. Class discrimination in the media displays the knowledge of what people feel and think about classism. When seeing class discrimination in films and television shows, people are influenced and believe that is how things are in real life, for whatever class is being displayed. Children can be exposed to class discrimination through movies, with a large pool of high-grossing G-rated movies portraying classism in various contexts. Children may develop biases at a young age that shape their beliefs throughout their lifetime, which would demonstrate the issues with class discrimination being prevalent in the media. Media is a big influence on the world today, with that something such as classism is can be seen in many different lights. Media plays an important role in how certain groups of people are perceived, which can make certain biases stronger. Usually, the lower income people are displayed in the media as dirty, lacking education and manners, and homeless. People can use the media to learn more about different social classes or use the media, such as social media to influence others on what they believe. In some cases, people who are in a social class that is portrayed negatively by the media can be affected in school and social life as "teenagers who grew up in poverty reported higher levels of discrimination, and the poorer the teens were, the more they experienced discrimination".

Legislation
The European Convention on Human Rights, in Article 14, contains protections against social class ("social origin") discrimination.

title: Class discrimination