The founder, and the time of its erection, are very uncertain; but I refer my readers to the first volume of the _Archæologia_; to an ingenious Dissertation, by Daines Barrington, where it is satisfactorily proved to have been the work of King Edward I. This castle is one of the noblest ruins of ancient architecture now remaining in the kingdom, and exceeds all in bigness, except that of Windsor. The hall and the chapel may still be traced; the former measures about seventy feet in length, thirty-four in breadth, and seventeen in height. The roof is vaulted about eight feet high, and supported by twenty arches. On the north side is a chimney ten feet wide, with two windows on each side, extending down to the floor, and carried above the supposed height of this room. At each angle was originally a round tower of four stories, communicating with each other by a gallery. On the west side of the hall stairs is a low round tower, of one story, called the Mint-house, with three painted arches on the south side, and a square well on the west. The leaning tower, towards the east end, more particularly engaged our notice: it is divided into two separate parts by a large fissure, which runs from the top down almost to the middle. Its lineal projection is supposed to be on the outer side about eleven feet and a half. On the west and north are visible vestiges of a draw-bridge. The east wall, on the south side of the principal entrance, is fluted between the buttresses, with battlements on their tops, to protect the intermediate walls. This castle was that to which the Spensers retired in the reign of Edward II. but being taken, there were discovered within the walls, 2,000 fat oxen, 12,000 cows, 25,000 calves, 30,000 fat sheep, 600 horses, 2,000 fat hogs; besides 2,000 beeves, 600 sheep, and 1,000 hogs salted: 200 tons of wine, 40 tons of cider, and wheat for 2,000 men for four years. We now came to the celebrated VALE OF GLAMORGAN, so justly styled the Garden of South Wales: the rapid Taff forms an almost continued uproar for many miles; on the opposite side the mountains rose almost perpendicularly in a massy wall, and sometimes to the water’s edge, finely clothed with wood. Every circumstance conspired to heighten the solitary grandeur of the scene, and to prolong the luxurious melancholy which the views inspired. In this celebrated vale is found the famous Pont-y-prid, or New Bridge, about three quarters of a mile from the Duke of Bridgewater’s Arms. This wonderful bridge of one arch is the segment of a circle; the chord of it is one hundred and forty feet, and the height of the key-stone from the spring of the arch, thirty-two feet and a half. It was erected in the year 1750, by William Edwards, a country mason, who failed in his attempt three times, till he lightened the abutments; it has resisted for many years the torrents of the Taff.