Caerphilly Castle

PricingFree with English Heritage membershipEH memberFree entryNon-member£12.90

EH members: half price, then freeInfo

Half price, then free, for English Heritage members

This place is cared for by Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environment service. English Heritage members pay half the standard admission during their first year of membership and get free entry once they have renewed. Show your current membership card at admissions.

Cadw's own members, and Historic Scotland and Manx National Heritage members, get the same arrangement in reverse.
Bring the card itself: joint and family memberships admit the named holders only.
Most Cadw sites are unstaffed and free to everyone; the arrangement matters at the staffed castles, abbeys and houses that charge.

More information

Entry

Non-member prices

Adult£12.90

Junior (aged 5 to 17) or student£9.00

Senior (aged 65 and over)£11.60

Family (2 adults and up to 3 children)£41.30

Family (1 adult and up to 3 children)£28.40

Pricing details

Standard walk-up price for 1 September 2026 to 31 March 2027; booking online saves 5% (non-refundable). A joint ticket with Castell Coch (adult £16.30, usable at both in one day) excludes partner membership discounts. Blue Light Card holders and HM Armed Forces and veterans get 10% off on the day. Disabled visitors and one companion enter free. Cadw's £1 ticket is available online to people on Universal Credit and other named benefits. English Heritage members: half price in your first membership year and free after your first renewal, on showing a valid card (named holders only). Cadw members free.

Students must show photo ID; under-5s free. Joint ticket with Castell Coch £11.40. English Heritage members: half price in your first membership year and free after your first renewal, on showing a valid card (named holders only). Cadw members free.

Joint ticket with Castell Coch £14.60. English Heritage members: half price in your first membership year and free after your first renewal, on showing a valid card (named holders only). Cadw members free.

Children under 5 are free. Joint ticket with Castell Coch £52.20 (no partner membership discount on joint tickets). English Heritage members: half price in your first membership year and free after your first renewal, on showing a valid card (named holders only). Cadw members free.

Children under 5 are free. Joint ticket with Castell Coch £35.90. English Heritage members: half price in your first membership year and free after your first renewal, on showing a valid card (named holders only). Cadw members free.

ParkingPay to park

Council pay and display: The Twyn short stay across the road (£1.10 for 2 hours, £4 a day) or Crescent Road long stay behind the castle (£2.50 a day); free on Sundays. Not a Trust car park, so membership does not cover it.

Parking details

Cadw names a short-stay pay and display car park about 110 m away and a long-stay one about 500 m away, with dedicated accessible parking: the short stay is The Twyn, Caerphilly County Borough Council's car park next to the visitor centre and tourist information centre across Castle Street (2 hours £1.10, 4 hours £2.20, all day £4), and the long stay is Crescent Road at the back of the castle, about ten minutes' walk or push from the entrance (long stay 2 hours £1, 4 hours £1.50, all day £2.50, week £10; a short-stay section at Twyn rates). Charges apply Monday to Saturday 8am to 6pm including bank holidays; Sundays are free. The path from the car park to the entrance is flat, with steps near the bus stop as a short cut. Reviewers say the car parks fill quickly and suggest the park and ride about 11 minutes' walk away, or parking long stay and walking through the grounds.

Driving pin: The Twyn Car Park listing, 218 m south-east of Cadw's own map marker at the Castle Street gate. By road: A468 from Newport; M4 junction 32, A470 and A469 from Cardiff. National Cycle Network route 4 passes 200 m away.

By rail: Caerphilly, 1 km, on the Cardiff to Bargoed and Rhymney line, a ten-minute walk downhill. By bus: route 26, Cardiff to Caerphilly and Tredegar, stops opposite the castle.

About

Caerphilly Castle, Castell Caerffili, is the biggest castle in Wales and second only to Windsor in Britain, begun in 1268 by the Marcher lord Gilbert de Clare against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, who twice tried to knock it down before it was finished. Massive walls, towers and gatehouses combine with sprawling water defences over 30 acres, the earliest concentric design in Britain, and the east-side dam presents 280 m of walls and bastions to the town. Hugh Despenser remodelled the great hall, the fourth Marquess of Bute restored the castle in the 1920s, and the south-east tower, blown out of true by Civil War gunpowder, leans further than Pisa. A conservation project reopened the Great Hall in 2025 with digital exhibits. Reviewers follow the one-way story route with its video talking heads, rate the siege engines and moat views, and allow at least 90 minutes; the car parks fill, so try the long stay or the park and ride. Dogs on leads may explore the ground floor.

Check today’s timesSee all times

Caerphilly Castle09:30 – 17:00last admission 16:30

Opening times may change at short notice.

Open daily all year: 1 March to 30 June 9.30am to 5pm; 1 July to 31 August 9.30am to 6pm; 1 September to 31 October 9.30am to 5pm; 1 November to 28 February 10am to 4pm. Last admission 30 minutes before closing. Closed 24, 25 and 26 December and 1 January. Cadw may close monuments at short notice in extreme weather, and the highest points may close in high winds.

Visitor notice (October 2026): because of an intermittent ticketing system fault the castle may at times only be able to accept online tickets, so book online before travelling while this lasts. The Great Hall, inner ward and new digital exhibits reopened on 19 July 2025 after two years of conservation; nothing is listed as closed.

The visitor centre is at the front on a flat paved path, then a short moderately steep incline and a wooden bridge into the castle; the north dam platform, courtyard and great hall are at ground level (one step into the lower gatehouse), while the rest is reached by narrow, winding, largely original staircases, slippery when wet; a one-way route with a map given on arrival, with plenty of seating. Gravel and cobbles can defeat some mobility scooters. Toilets at the back of the Great Hall, seven cubicles upstairs and an accessible toilet with baby changing on the ground floor. Portable induction loop, defibrillator, dog bowl, four picnic tables, a loud audio-visual display in the Inner East Gatehouse, gift shop with guidebooks; no cafe or audio guide. Geese may attack in the nesting season. Drones are not permitted.

Dogs: Dogs on leads are welcome on the ground-floor levels of the castle; above ground floor only assistance dogs. The courtyard, north dam platform and outer platforms inside the paid site are ground level and open to dogs on short leads with an admission ticket; a dog bowl is provided.

Photo: Caerphilly Castle from the south, its towers, curtain walls and the leaning south-east tower reflected in the lake. DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caerphilly_Castle_south.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.