Day 6: Ruperra Castle Preservation Trust’s Sustainable Vision for Ruperra

The Trust wants Ruperra Castle, and what remains of its once vast estate, to benefit the local community, enabling people to enjoy its beauty and gain health benefits by working there again, and by walking and cycling around it in their leisure time.  We want to encourage people to access the area sustainably - to minimise human impact on nature and on Ruperra’s hidden archaeology. 

The Castle, built in 1626 - nearly 400 years ago - is in a very dangerous state.  There has been only one attempt at repairs in the 80 years since it was burned out in a fire caused by an electrical fault in December 1941.  Since then it has stood unprotected from the elements.  The south-east tower collapsed in the 1980s and there are ominous cracks in its walls.  The listed outbuildings, magnificent listed Edwardian greenhouse, and Registered parkland and garden, are also in need of careful repair and restoration. 

The Trust aims to buy Ruperra Castle and to access funding - from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and elsewhere - to undertake repairs, and to open the grounds to the public.  Our Business Plan envisages Ruperra becoming the core of a heritage-led country park, parts of which will be used to train local people in horticulture, traditional building skills and rural crafts.

All of this can be achieved while enhancing the environment and the wider landscape, encouraging a diverse range of plants, animals and insects to use the land undisturbed during the night for foraging, roosting and hibernating - this will protect us all from further climate change.    

We can achieve all of this with your help.  Write to Caerphilly County Borough Council to object to plans by the current owner to convert some of the outbuildings, leaving the Castle to rot!  Approving these plans - with the noise and light pollution they’d bring - would spoil the setting of the Castle, disrupt nature and the habitats of rare species, and accelerate climate change.  

SO STOP THIS HAPPENING - ACT NOW - OBJECT TO THE CURRENT PLANS, EMAIL PLANNING@CAERPHILLY.GOV.UK AND JOIN US IN ACHIEVING A SUSTAINABLE VISION FOR RUPERRA!