Castles Comparision

The rooms of Castell Coch
The rooms of Castell Coch see Burges moving into the realms of fantasy with elaborate decoration in the forms of paintings and carvings. with most medieval castles in a state of ruin the interiors usually match the exterior, cold dark grey walls. To walk into a castle room lined with colour, carvings and imagination seems like a contradiction and a purely Victorian embellishment but medieval castle interiors may not have been far from this form of elaboration. The interiors of castles in the middle ages were decorated with extensive mural painting both on walls and ceilings while wall hangings were employed to reduce drafts. The floors of the rooms were covered with rushes but not, as is often thought, in a haphazard way. the poorer establishments may well have had rushes strewn across the floor but for the wealthy they were woven into matting and replaced each year. Furniture was sparse but, never the less, used. Burges designed items of furniture especially for Castell Coch and they are still in place. Castell Coch could not have been the most comfortable place to live in and the furniture seems to have been designed to match. Burges must have decided that medieval furniture would have been uncomfortable and considering that it was not greatly used it seems likely that it was an undeveloped art. Castell Coch has modern conveniences of the Victorian period such as piped water, toilets and electric lighting but they are discreetly placed and do not intrude upon the overall effect of the building. Castell Coch was only ever intended to be used as a summer residence, it was barely even employed as that and mainly came into use as a place of quarantine for the Bute children when they had infectious diseases. A medieval castle was put to more use than Castell Coch ever saw but the medieval castle's owner, whether lord or king, usually moved between his estates seasonally, and so the idea of a castle being used by its lord only in a particular season is normal even by medieval standards. castell Coch, like most medieval castles takes its elements from various different sources. it may not have kept with the tradition of the medieval castle in Wales but it certainly expanded on the theme, taking those European influences to further heights, not in the direction of fortification or domestic comfort, but the picturesque.

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