Free entry to Castell Coch proved incredibly popular and caused disruption in the village yesterday.
Cadw, the historic environment service of the Welsh Government, offered free entry to selected sites on St David’s Day and Castell Coch had unprecedented visitor numbers.
@mytongwynlais Yes, free last year too. Unexpected & unprecedented numbers yesterday ( > 2000). 1 out 1 in at lunch time. Weather possibly?!
— Cadw (@cadwwales) March 2, 2015
Cadw confirmed today that they had over 2000 visitors at the castle and had to implement a “one out, one in” policy over lunch.
Several Twitter users posted pictures of the queues and traffic at the castle.
I think word got out about free entry to @Castell_Coch #chaos pic.twitter.com/8I9bDrg0e8
— Rachel Gray (@thisisrgg) March 1, 2015
Nice queue at Castell Coch today. pic.twitter.com/d8k5jg2ShZ
— Will Finch (@willfinch) March 1, 2015
This isn’t the first time Cadw have offered free entry on St David’s Day. Previous years haven’t seen such demand. It must have been a combination of the weather and the day it fell on to have caused so many visitors to descend on the village.
I took advantage of the free entry back in 2009, took my eldest grandson, it too was a Sunday and a very sunny day – no such chaos that day, we more or less had the castle to ourselves – I think it was media coverage, facebook/twitter etc that drew so many people here yesterday. It really was hectic.