Loughor Castle

PricingFreeFree for all visitors

Free entry for everyone

Entry

Free for everyone

Pricing details

Free entry for everyone; no membership card is needed.

ParkingNo car park

Arrive on foot, by bike or by public transport.

Parking details

Cadw lists no designated parking and says to park in the street below; the castle sits at the top of a short hill, reached by the steps to the right of the site. Nothing is published about where to park or any charge.

Driving pin: Cadw's marker on Castle Street at the foot of the mound, beside the Ship and Castle bus stop and the information board. By road: in Loughor, 7 miles north-west of Swansea, off the A484. By rail: Gowerton, 4 km. National Cycle Network route 4 passes the castle.

About

Loughor Castle, Castell Casllwchwr, stands on a mound in the middle of Loughor, a castle that commanded what was once a low-tide fording point across the Loughor estuary, and a thousand years earlier the Romans had built the fort of Leucarum on the same spot. A 12th-century earthworks castle, a ring bank raised between 1106 and 1151, was burnt by the Welsh in 1151 and replaced in the next century with a stone fortress, of which a single square tower survives with the foundations of its curtain walls. Reviewers find a very small ruin hidden among the houses, seen in ten minutes, but enjoy the river views and the information board by the bus stop, and make a longer outing with Parc Williams and the estuary next door. There is no designated parking, so park on the street below and climb the steps on the right. Dogs on short leads may explore the ground level.

Open in daylightFrom Cadw's published times

Open any reasonable time in daylight

Opening times may change at short notice.

Open all year during reasonable daylight hours; no admission charge. Cadw may close monuments at short notice in extreme weather.

Terrain level 2, easy: a short climb up the steps to the top of the mound, where the ground is sloped and uneven in places and slippery when wet; keep off the walls. No toilets or facilities; Parc Williams is next door. Drones are not permitted.

Dogs: Dogs on short leads are welcome on the ground level of the castle, which is the grassed mound and tower base.

Photo: The ruined square tower of Loughor Castle with a fallen block of masonry in front, on a grassy mound with a house roof and trees at the edges. Chris Andrews, CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Loughor_Castle_-_geograph.org.uk_-_4220314.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.