It was our first time visiting Raglan Castle despite living in Wales for all of our lives, however it appears to be one of the lesser known Castle's based in Wales. We found it difficult to find in-depth information about the Castle's history (despite there being an official website) that we ended up curating the information from Wiki.

The Castle rear itself is rather stunning. The Castle front is all in tact providing a spectacular view that drums a sense of imagination of what life would have been like back then as well as marvelling at the structure. We spent three hours taking in the Castle's beauty and took the opportunity to sit at one of the many benches scattered around - very handy if you need a rest or want to take a minute or two to appreciate the view.

Pros -

The Castle's greenery area is well contained as well as safety signs for certain parts of the Castle.

The gift shop is rather quaint and has a selection of fine jewellery and little mementos.

There are toilet facilities located to the rear of the Castle and were very clean.

The entrance price was fair considering the Castle's age and condition.

There is a Cafe that is close by but does require a 5-10 minute walk or if driving is fine however the road being in the country side you can imagine is quite narrow.

Cons -

Despite the charms that a Pigeon and the variety of birds that reside at the Castle were, there is a slight concern regarding them. My personal view of the situation I believe is because they are 'used' to humans they feel quite confident being in close proximity, as there was a number of times that they flew over (an inch or two) above our head which was a little uncomfortable. Although we didn't take a picnic with us (which is an option to take and eat on the grounds) I would imagine this would prove difficult with the bird situation as I don't think they would have any hesitation in pinching some food or at least waiting for the opportunity to hover.

Another animal issue we found was that there was a swarm of wasps and fly's that were situated to the rear entrance booth and the car park - the fly's decided to reside on our actual car which was rather strange and proved difficult trying to access our car as they started to fly around us and were (surprisingly however strange it may read) were aggressive.

The information boards don't provide much historical details and the reading level seems 'very dumbed down'. The boards are only situated in the most important parts of the Castle (around four areas) so this was a little disappointing as I wanted to know the entire design layout especially as the influence of the design structure was inspired by French history. There are two rooms situated towards the front right hand side of the Castle yet I found these rooms to be a little confusing, the one room consisted of a fire place and some posters and then the other room had a few leaflets of other tourist attractions near. I think these rooms would have been best suited to showcasing some props i.e. suits of armour or an interactive computer system or touch screen application (even if it was an iPad etc) for historic voice overs etc. giving the opportunity to learn about the Castle's history.

The MAJOR concern I have with the castle is the Moat. Although a stunning build it deeply concerns me that there is not enough safety measures in place. It is quite easy for a slip or trip to fall into the water - this is of course possible through stupidly or as a general accident yet there are some parts of the moat where you can walk onto the grass to look into the water and it would worry me that if an adult or a child happens to slip there is no way of alerting any staff or a any form of communication reach point to alert emergency.

Overall besides my initial thoughts as above, it was a fantastic day out and makes a special photography opportunity.