Cadw celebrates 40 years of preserving Welsh landmarks

  • ITV Wales Journalist Issa Farfour reports

The organisation responsible for protecting Wales' historical sites is celebrating its 40th birthday.

Since it was established in 1984, Cadw has welcomed over 50 million visitors from across the UK and the world to its historic monuments in Wales.

There are now over 30,000 listed historic buildings, over 4,200 protected historic monuments, nearly 400 registered historic parks and gardens, and four World Heritage sites.

The word Cadw means 'to look after' or 'to protect' and that is what they aim to do .

Hundreds of workers and volunteers work towards the goal of protecting and looking after the Wales's heritage.

Events are taking place to celebrate the work of Cadw which has helped preserve around 130 sites across the country.

This summer, the organisation is celebrating it's 40th anniversary by holding events across Wales for all the family to enjoy.

Cadw cares for over 130 historic monuments including medieval castles, abbeys, industrial sites, Roman and prehistoric monuments such as neolithic chambered tombs.

Cadw’s most recent additions are Llys Rhosyr and Castell Caergwrle – iconic places associated with Welsh Princes.

Gwilym Hughes, CEO of Cadw, said: “We spent millions on conserving and protecting and looking after these monuments for not just present generations to enjoy, but future generations too.

"But we also want to encourage visitors to come and enjoy those sites and to just experience history, Living history effectively at all these monuments, which is just such an exceptional experience”.

He continued: “We can learn so much from the past, can't we? We can learn from past mistakes and challenges, and we can think about how that can teach children how things worked in the past, and how we've got to where we are today and into the future as well.

"But Cadw isn't just about the monuments that we look after. Cadw also is responsible for the heritage and the historic environment of the whole of Wales. We've trebled the number of listed buildings across Wales, we've doubled the number of scheduled monuments across Wales.

"All those are part of our everyday life, the places where we live, it makes the places that we live mean something to us as people, Residents living and working and enjoying being in this fantastic country”.

Roger Morgan has worked with Cadw for 36 years. He was the custodian in the 1990s, now he does the medieval medicine entertainment.

“It's been an incredible journey", Mr Morgan said.

"I started off in the 1980s working at the amphitheatre in Caerleon, which was, of course, Roman. I had quite a few years there, and then did a bit of time travelling and came to Chepstow and had roughly ten years at Chepstow Castle.

"So we went from the Roman period straight up into the Norman period, which was a fascinating thing to do and to study the history of the castle as well as presenting it and looking after it for the public on behalf of Cadw. It's quite an honour to do something like that in a place like this”.

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