Publisher's Synopsis
This South Wales market town has long been a site of strategic significance, as evidenced by its magnificent castle. The original town of Caerphilly grew up as a small settlement just south of the castle. The town was rebuilt but remained very small throughout the Middle Ages. The first evidence of its emerging importance was the construction of a Court House in the fourteenth century, the only pre-nineteenth-century building still remaining in the town. During the 1700s, Caerphilly began to grow into a market town, and during the nineteenth century, as the South Wales valleys underwent massive growth through industrialisation, so to the town's population grew. Today, Caerphilly is also well known for its famous cheese and the town has hosted a food fair, The Big Cheese, in and around Caerphilly Castle every summer since 1998, attracting tens of thousands of visitors every year. Comprising a magnificent range of images old and new, this new book explores the historical development of this fascinating town and its attractive surrounding area.
