Ruperra Castle

Resultantly the royal coat of arms was added to the decoration on the South Porch, and the present public footpath from Rudry to the Castle is still known as "King's Drive".

[5][6][7] Godfrey Charles Morgan, 2nd Baron, 1st Viscount Tredegar, who was a captain in the 17th Lancers during the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava in the Crimean War, was born at Ruperra.

[6][7] It was during the early Victorian age that he undertook a lot of development, adding three new lodges as well as in 1826 a now listed iron bridge, allowing a carriage way through Coed Craig Ruperra and across the Rhymney River to Lower Machen Church, where the family and their servants attended Sunday services.

[6][7] Courtenay's son, Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar, poet and noted eccentric with links to Aldous Huxley, Lord Alfred Douglas, Augustus John, Nancy Cunard and H. G. Wells, then owned Ruperra.

[6][7] He grew up there and, apparently, refused to sell it to William Randolph Hearst, whose lover, the actress Marion Davies, wanted a home in South Wales.

Unstaffed and effectively abandoned, at the start of World War II, like many other large estate houses, it was taken over by the British Army, under whose control in 1941 it was destroyed by another fire.