Castle's �8m visitor centre opens

Cardiff Castle has an �8m new visitor centre offering multi-media tours. Enlarge Image

An �8m interpretation centre is offering visitors the first multi-media tour of Cardiff Castle's 2,000-year history.

The centre is a steel, glass and wood addition to the castle, first occupied by the Romans and which has seen Norman, Medieval and Victorian periods.

From Thursday visitors can watch a film of its history via a girl who meets ghosts from across the ages.

But for two tourists the smells of the

castle offered the biggest surprise.

Australians Peter and Deanna Palmer were in Cardiff to watch their son, Daniel, in the Under 20s Rugby World Cup.

Mr Palmer, 46, a police detective from Shellharbour, New South Wales, , said: "As Australia is a young country, this is something that we don't have.

"If you grew up here the castle would 'just be the castle', something you go past every day, but our history is the opera house and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Deanna Palmer looked out of a windows in the castle galleries

"There are still people alive that were at the bridge's opening."

The couple's tour began inside the centre which leads into the gloom of the castle itself.

Displays in English and Welsh line the darkened corridor as visitors made their way to a glass-roofed ante room.

More boards complete the timeline of the castle and a widescreen television hung in the far corner loops images of the site, artefacts and costumed re-enactments.

The Palmers were told the artefacts, excavated during the centre's construction, will be displayed in glass cases.

In the long room the Palmers learnt more of the castle's history through the film of a young girl who falls into a reverie and meets people from the past.

Like a Doctor Who adventure, she ends up running for her life from some of the characters - and even has a run-in with a Victorian pickpocket.

Throughout, a timeline was displayed at the bottom of the screen, while a series of images of maps, artefacts, and drawings are shown alongside.

The film screen rolls up to reveal the view of the castle Keep

Mr Palmer said: "I spent most of my time looking at the timeline and still images. I was watching the film but I kept coming back to the timeline.

"It gave an idea of the eras as thing changed and showed how the castle had been developed.

"It showed how the castle started 2,000 years ago and how it has changed and how it is still part of Cardiff's life."

Then the couple were shown the castle keep but the next stage of the tour holds the biggest surprise.

The castle's galleries have not been opened to the public since they were air raid shelters in World War II.

Languages

But the redevelopment meant the Palmers could look out of the castle's windows onto the traffic below while leaning against the stones of the castle itself.

Mr Palmer said: "The smell took me by surprise. The gallery was what I expected it to look like, but the smell, no.

"It gave you some sense of what it could have been like here when it was under attack, under siege. They could have had farm animals in here."

In the castle gallery began their self-guided tour of the rest of the castle using a special hand-held device which explains the heritage in 10 languages.

A sign language option, a children's version and a tour for the visually impaired are available.

Mrs Palmer, who claimed to be useless with gadgets, said even she felt at ease using it.

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