Cyfarthfa Castle

Cyfarthfa Castle is the Grade I-listed centrepiece of Cyfarthfa Park and is home to a museum, art gallery and, until 2014, Cyfarthfa High School. The grand mansion, a vast building with 15 towers and 72 rooms, was completed in 1825 by the architect Robert Lugar for ironmaster William Crawshay II and his family, who controlled the largest ironworks in the town. Now, a major redevelopment project to reinvigorate the historic assets within the area and imagine contemporary, complementary ways to elevate the park’s status as an attraction, re-energise the area and cultivate people’s pride in their history, culture and environment is underway. The project will be undertaken in phases across two decades, focusing on restoring the mansion and expanding the park to encompass the remains of the 200-year-old Cyfarthfa furnaces, a scheduled ancient monument opposite the castle. The museum and art gallery, which houses a selection of displays from work by Welsh artists to items and exhibits documenting Merthyr’s huge importance as a steel town, only uses about 10% of the mansion. The rest of the building is inaccessible to the public, having fallen into disrepair. In May 2023, award-winning architect Anna Baker was appointed project director for the Cyfarthfa Foundation, the charity set up to transform Cyfarthfa Castle and Park into an international cultural and heritage destination. The 20-year strategic plan for Cyfarthfa Park, led by Ian Ritchie Architects, landscape architect Gustafson Porter + Bowman, and heritage consultant Fourth Street, aims to rejuvenate its historic assets and community pride, enhance its status through contemporary complementary developments, and connect its rich industrial heritage with nature and socio-economic renewal for Merthyr Tydfil. The Welsh Government has also approached the Foundation to enter a competition for the castle to become the possible ‘anchor site’ of a new National Contemporary Art Gallery for Wales. The estimated cost of the project is anticipated to be £50 million for the castle alone. The Welsh Government has provided the Cyfarthfa Foundation with £1.2 million in funding, including £146,480 from the Welsh Government’s Cultural Transformation Capital Programme to develop an off-site storage space, which will allow for the relocation of the museum’s art store and provide better public access to the collection. In early 2024, the project appointed Greenwood Projects Ltd to provide Project Management and Quantity Surveying services. In March 2024, the Cardiff office of Purcell was appointed as the Conservation Architect-Led Design Team to advance the scheme to a comprehensive RIBA 1 level, supporting a future application for development funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and other sources. Due to the early stage of this project, our opening year and budget are currently estimates. (Updated 22 March 2024)