id: sig-20260722-report-cd123
site_id: gb-cardigan-cardigan
attribute: designation_report
value: 'Reference Number

  CD123

  Name

  Cardigan Castle

  Date of Designation

  Status

  Designated

  Unitary Authority

  Ceredigion

  Community

  Cardigan

  Easting

  217791

  Northing

  245917

  Broad Class

  Defence

  Site Type

  Castle

  Period

  Medieval

  The monument comprises the remains of a Medieval castle built by the Norman lord, Gilbert
  de Clare around 1110. The castle is located at the southern end of the town of Cardigan,
  on a rocky spur overlooking the river Teifi. Below the castle, the ground drops precipitously
  to the east and south.

  Lord Rhys captured the castle for the Welsh in 1164 and rebuilt it in stone in 1171, although
  nothing remains of this earlier phase. By 1240 Walter Marshal, brother of the earl of Pembroke
  captured and rebuilt the castle, however a major phase of rebuilding took place in about
  1244-54 under Robert Waleran, who became constable in 1248. Most of the medieval fabric
  that remains probably dates to this period. A keep on the north curtain wall was built in
  1246-52 (completed in about 1261) and three towers were built in the south-east, east and
  north of the site. The outer ward is roughly oval in plan enclosing approximately 3 acres.
  In 1279 Edward III made the castle the administrative centre for the new shire of Cardigan.

  Further repairs and building works continued into the fourteenth century, but after this
  the castle appears to have been neglected. By 1343 the curtain wall was in ruins and by
  1610 the Great Tower (north tower), was partially ruined. Excavations in 1984 revealed that
  there had been a ditch, 7m wide, north of the tower, with a counterscarp bank about 7m wide
  and 1.5m high. In the Civil War the castle was damaged further during a siege of Cardigan
  by Parliamentarian forces in December 1644; the curtain wall between the east and south-east
  towers was partially destroyed.

  The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of Medieval
  social, domestic and political life and warfare. Notably, the first Eisteddfod was hosted
  here in 1176.

  The scheduled area comprises the remains described and an area around them within which
  related evidence may be expected to survive.'
source_url: http://cadwpublic-api.azurewebsites.net/reports/sam/FullReport?lang=en&id=1885
source_title: Scheduled Monument Full Report — Cardigan Castle
publisher: Cadw
observed_date: '2026-07-22'
collected_by: scripts/build_assessment_batch.py
confidence: high
notes: The designation text. Assess the six bands against THIS evidence only; omit any band
  it does not speak to.