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Castell Coch

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it is a major work of William Burges and a comprehensive account of it. We'd like to try to get this up to FA status. Thanks, ♦ Dr. Blofeld, User:Hchc2009 and User:KJP1. 19:05, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Peer review is still open, just not transcluded to save space at WP:PR

Some things:

  • The lead says wine production ended in WWI and implies it was uprooted between 1914 and 1918 but the body says 1920.
I think the reference on the BBC website indicates that production ceased during the war (sometime between 1914-18) and that the vines were uprooted in 1920. KJP1 (talk) 20:29, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do we know when Cadw took control of the property?
The 5th Marquis handed it over in 1950 to the Ministry of Works. CADW will have picked it up on that organisation's inception. Not sure when. KJP1 (talk) 20:29, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Curly Turkey

[edit]
  • I've made some copyedits, which of course you are free to revert if you dislike them.
  • Are you aware of {{sfnm}}?
  • The first castle on the site: I'm an adherent of the belief that the body should be indeendent of the lead. From that point of view, "the site" has no context.
  • an uprising of the native Welsh in the region: why? and why is this relevant in the context?
  • In terms of the relevancy, I'm not sure I understood your concern there; the native Welsh then destroy the castle in the next sentence...? In terms of why, said native Welsh weren't very happy about having had their lands seized in 1267 (at the start of the paragraph), and they took the chance once the main landowner was dead to rise up etc. (there are some wider political shifts at the time, but that's the local gist of it!) Hchc2009 (talk) 06:39, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "al yn ruine no bigge thing but high": it may not be immediately obvious that this is English; is there some reason this should be in the original orthography?
Done - but do others think it better? KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • A similar view was sketched in the early 19th century: anonymous?
Done. KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • the ruins were recommended as a site for picnics, the surrounding land described as being covered in wild garlic: by whom?
Done. KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • On his majority: maybe "On coming of age"?
Done. KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • in 1850 the antiquarian George Clark had surveyed: probably should be "in 1850 the antiquarian George Clark had surveyed" or "in by 1850 the antiquarian George Clark had surveyed"
  • on behalf of the Marquess's trustees: someone other than the trustees was concerned on the trustees' behalf?
  • 40 hogsheads of wine—a conversion would be helpful
  • Burges died in 1881 from a chill caught during a site visit to the castle.: is that really plausible?
  • In the 19th century, yes; open or unheated carriages, the South Wales hills in mid-winter, no central heating, the extremely poor air quality from burning coal etc. made this sort of thing common in the Victorian period. Even my grandparents (thoroughly post-Victorian, I should add!) were absolutely insistent on members of the family dressing up warmly, wearing scarves and so on to prevent serious chills reaching the chest. Hchc2009 (talk) 07:13, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • grand rooms able to host large gatherings: given it's a castle, "grand" could read as "fantastic".
Done. KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bute died in 1900 and the Marchioness: who is the Marchioness? Is this the Marquess we were just reading about?
  • Sounds sensible. I do wonder what kind of people we are letting edit the Wikipedia nowadays though; couldn't we have some sort of user checklist for establishing an account, asking pertinent questions like "Are you, your seat, or your ancient family name, the subject of a Wikipedia article?", or ""If addressing an editor with the username of DukeWhittlington, how would you conclude your message to him on his talk page?" and so on. ;) Hchc2009 (talk) 11:05, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Done. KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • her daughter, Lady Margaret Crichton-Stuart,: I notice sometimes these names are set off with commas and sometimes not.
Will check these and insert a comma where missing. KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • during the depression of the 1920s: something good to link to? Most people associate the 1920s with prosperity.
  • Production in the castle vineyards ceased in the First World War: I might put this before the preceding "after 1918" statement
Moved to improve chronological flow. KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • due to the sugar shortages: what sugar shortages? And why would that impact a vineyard? Wouldn't that encourage more fruit-growing?
  • interest in the property grew, with publications in the 1950s and 1960s exploring its artistic and architectural value: this could read as the publications either driving or being the result of such interest
Addressed, I think.
  • the 19th-century additions in more precisely cut red Pennant sandstone: wondering—are they more precisely cut because they are in red Pennant sandstone?
  • There are now no remains of an "outer court" recorded by George Clark in 1850 and it is suspected that Clark misidentified the traces of the earlier lime kiln operations around the site.: meaning he mistook a lime kiln for an outer court?
  • Multiple lime kilns, but yes. You'd have probably come across what would have looked like lots of rubble, rough stonework, etc., interspersed with trees and vegetation (possibly the same time of stone as the castle, if it was robbed) and I can imagine why he'd have made the mistake. Hchc2009 (talk) 06:39, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • across a wooden bridge, which incorporates a drawbridge: would he intended meaning change if this were worded "across a wooden drawbridge"?
  • and sensitively decorated: "sensitively" may be POV; it's probably superfluous
Removed. KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • with extensive inputs from Bute and his wife: doesn't countable "inputs" normally imply a variety of input, rather than a quantity?
Done - "considerable involvement"? KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Marchioness's bed is the most notable piece of furniture in the room: if that's so, I'd expect some details about it.
Done. Added detail from Crook, but at the cost of another quote. Though tempted to add yet another. Crook's next line is particularly good - "The room is a retreat for Dame Edith Sitwell, playing the Lady of Shallot." KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Other rooms in the castle include Lady Margaret Bute's bedroom, the Servants' Hall and the kitchen.: this is uncited
Done. KJP1 (talk) 17:16, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Great to have Curly Turkey reviewing. He hugely improved The Tower House. I can pick most of these up, but it'll be over the next couple of days. Will Ping when I need help, as I will. KJP1 (talk) 22:06, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Tim

[edit]
  • Lead
    • "to protect the newly conquered town of nearby Cardiff" – creaks a bit. Perhaps "to protect the newly conquered town of Cardiff, nearby"? Or "to protect the nearby town of Cardiff, newly conquered"? Or "to protect the nearby, newly conquered town of Cardiff"? They creak a bit too, but not so loudly, I think.
  • Bute ownership
    • "Stone from the castle may have been robbed" – stolen (unless, like me, you're a Scouser, in which case "robbed" is idiomatic; in all other forms of English known to me, people are robbed and things are stolen).
    • "one of the wealthiest men in the world" – variants of "wealthy" occur three times in the article, and "rich" doesn't occur at all. Plain Words, I say! Why not have Bute as one of the richest men in the world? I always think "wealthy" a slightly prissy word, like "commence" and "haemorrhoids".
  • I'd have actually gone the other way; "rich" to me has connotations of Scrooge McDuck and his mounds of money, whereas wealthy implies assets, but not necessarily a huge bank account (which probably is close to the Marquess). I'd rather be either be rich or wealthy, though, rather than commence treatment for haemorrhoids...! :) Hchc2009 (talk) 10:44, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reconstruction
    • in the para beginning "Stimulated by antiquarian writings…" we need to get the references in numerical order at the ends of the first, fifth and sixth sentences.
Done - I hope, but I'm not the best one to mess with references. KJP1 (talk) 17:26, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • "produced annually by 1894 to positive reviews" – I see The Manchester Guardian reported that the wine "compares favourably with many of the high-priced Continental wines". (Editorial, The Manchester Guardian 15 Nov 1897, p. 7)
    • "Punch magazine claimed" – do any of the three sources give date and page number for this Punch quote? I have online access to the complete Punch archive, and I can't verify the quote.
  • Architecture and landscape
    • "France or Switzerland than Britain, is historically inaccurate.[87][31][74][88]" – more rearranging of ref order wanted
    • "Lord Bute's Bedroom and Lady Bute's bedroom" – shocking sexism! His bedroom capitalised and hers not? We have a helluva lot of capitalised common nouns here and later: why capitalise "drawing room", for instance? But see comment below, expanding on the matter of capitalisation.
    • "comprise a suite of rooms" – if I correctly interpret the import of this, "comprise" is not the right word here. "Comprise" means "consist of" ("the committee comprised Mr A, Dr B and Mrs C"), and you use the word correctly earlier in "11–14th centuries". It looks to me here that the suite comprises the rooms rather than vice versa. You want "form" or "constitute" or some such here, I think.
  • The Banqueting Hall
    • Header: common noun phrase capitalised. The MoS decrees, "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. Most capitalization is for proper names or for acronyms." But your salvation may come in the next sentence: "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is a proper name; words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia." So if your sources capitalise Banqueting Hall and Drawing Room, you can get away with capitalising too.
Done. KJP1 (talk) 07:09, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Does Newman really spell "focused" with two esses?
  • Lord Bute's bedroom
    • "in the Lady Bute's Bedroom" – do you want the definite article here? And you really must make your ulc for "Bedroom/bedroom" consistent throughout the article.
    • "The bedroom, like others in the castle, would have been impractical for regular use in the 19th century as they lack wardrobes and other storage" – trouble with construction here: the meaning is plain, but grammatically the singular subject is wrongly given a plural verb. Changing "as they lack" to ", lacking" would fix this.
Been addressed.
  • Lady Bute's bedroom
    • Ref number order at end of first para.
    • "Lilwall-Smith likens … Peter Floud criticised" – not clear about your policy for present -v- past tense when saying what people have said.
I'll go back over and look at these. KJP1 (talk) 17:42, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

By the bye: for some reason the article page lacks the usual "currently being peer reviewed" note at the top. Not sure what the trouble is, but I've checked using both Internet Exploder and Mozarella Firefox. That's all from me. Let me know when you go to FAC, please. – Tim riley talk 09:01, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thankyou Tim!♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:52, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, yet again, Tim. Will certainly let you know when it goes to FAC. KJP1 (talk) 17:44, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

[edit]
The author is Thomas Nicholas, who died in 1879. Added that and a HathiTrust link to a copy of the book to the file. We hope (talk) 14:11, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Added PD-1923 tag. We hope (talk) 14:24, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to PD-100 as he died in 1881. We hope (talk) 22:03, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • How so? {{PD-UK-unknown}} shows that the duration of copyright for anonymous UK works is 70 years (hence, PD-anon-1923). — Crisco 1492 (talk)
  • PD-UK-unknown requires the user to have conducted independent, "reasonable" research into the authorship of the image for the anonymous justification to be legally binding in the UK (which I couldn't claim to have done), whereas Crown Copyright demonstrates that it is already released by the Crown due to the 50 years being up. Hchc2009 (talk) 11:08, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers Crisco!♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:52, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SchroCat

[edit]

A couple of quick comments before I begin a more detailed read through:

  • In the Burges quotebox, you say "measure of what is known or ought to beknown". Is it "beknown" in the original, or is a space missing?
Done. KJP1 (talk) 07:07, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the image caption for "Interior design detail", "... and the Three Fates" is a disambig link
  • I see in "Exterior" that you quote Williams as saying "a Wagnerian flavor to the Taff Valley". As Architectural History is a British publication, are you sure about the lack of U in flavour?
Checked.
  • Aim for consistency in your ISBNs – some are the short form, some long form (long form is, I think, the preferred version and you may find this converter of use); some are hyphenated, some are not.
  • I'm not sure you need US and UK for the publishing locations, although I think you will need to show in which US state the various US locations are based. A couple don't have any location showing at all.
  • A year is all that is needed for publishing date, not anything more specific

A more detailed look at the prose to follow. Cheer – SchroCat (talk) 14:18, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers Schro.♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:52, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Section titles

Comments by RHM22

[edit]

I'm reading through this article currently, and I'll add my comments, questions and suggestions below, as time allows. It may take me a couple of days to complete my review. I will also make copyedits in the meantime, but feel free to revert anything with which you disagree.

Done the first. My problem with removing the second is that legendary could then be misinterpreted. Best to leave? KJP1 (talk) 16:49, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "40 hogsheads of wine" does this refer to hogsheads as a generalized amount (like "keg" or "barrel"), or is it used as a precise measurement? If the latter, I'd suggest supplying a metric equivalent.-RHM22 (talk) 04:26, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe this sentence could be split to make it more digestible: "The stone tiles on the roof were replaced by slate in 1972, Lord Bute's cast-iron bed has been restored, extensive work was carried out on the Keep in 2007 and conservation work was undertaken in 2011 to address problems in Lady Bute's Bedroom, where damp had begun to damage the original finishings."-RHM22 (talk) 04:09, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This has been done.

I'm finished going over everything, and it all looks good to me. You might consider reworking those image captions in the gallery; I'm not sure how the FAC people will like the somewhat informal use of ellipses there. I'd treat each as a standalone caption, personally. This is a beautiful castle, by the way.-RHM22 (talk) 02:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks indeed for your review - most helpful. And I'm glad you liked the article and the castle. Note your point re. the gallery; personally, I like it and the impact of the castle is so visual that I'd keep it. But then I had a vast gallery for William Burges before Dr. B pruned it on account of FAC disapproval. Let's see what he, and Hchc2009, think. All the best. KJP1 (talk) 05:47, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be inclined to keep the captions as they are at the moment - a browser ought to be formatting the wiki layout reliably. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:43, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Dank

[edit]

Comments from Wehwalt

[edit]
Not much, but I seem to be late to the party.
Lede::
  • "he employed the architect William Burges to renovate the castle," If three were only ruins there before, perhaps "reconstruct" would be better than "renovate".
Agreed and Done. KJP1 (talk) 16:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • " architectural composition"[1] and the architectural historian Joseph Mordaunt Crook " I would suggest losing the "architectural historian". There's a link.
Done. KJP1 (talk) 16:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
History
  • "It formed one of a string of eight fortifications intended to defend the newly conquered town of Cardiff and controlled the route along the Taff Gorge." It feels like the "intended" should also apply to the "controlled" in which chase it should be "control"
Done. KJP1 (talk) 16:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "in the 13th century on the south-west side there would have been an adjacent turret containing latrines" The "on the south-west side" feels like it should be elsewhere.
Done. KJP1 (talk) 16:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Architecture
  • "Around the room, 58 panels each depict a unique plant, surmounted by a mural showing animals from Aesop's Fables" Feels like there should be a connector such as "and are" before "surmounted".
Done, by amendment. KJP1 (talk) 16:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "involvement from Bute and his wife.[103][108]" Is this correct in British English? In American, it would be "involvement of"
I think it works. It originally read "input from", which another reviewer disliked. It basically means they interfered a lot! KJP1 (talk) 16:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The Windlass Room includes murder holes, which Burges thought would have enabled medieval inhabitants of the castle to pour boiling water and oil on attackers" Thought? Is there doubt?
There wasn't in Burges's mind, but there is now, apparently. Hchc2009 has been educating me in modern thinking on medieval castle defenses. While the Victorians, and thus Burges, had no doubt that the murder holes were designed to enable defenders to pour boiling oil on attackers, modern historians are much less certain that was their purpose. Mainly, as I understand it, because very few contemporary sources exist that actually describe this use. I have since read of another suggestion that they were actually to allow water to be poured through to extinguish fires which the attackers may have lit to seek to damage/undermine the defences. So, in a nutshell, Burges thought so, but modern historians mostly don't. Does the sentence explain this? KJP1 (talk) 16:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's all I have. Well done.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:43, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers Wehwalt♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:52, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed - many thanks for your input, or is that involvement? Certainly not interference! Regards. KJP1 (talk) 16:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Brian is a bit busy at the moment I think. This has been open a week. Shall we head to FAC?♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:34, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Hchc2009: - fine by me if Hc's ready. KJP1 (talk) 17:42, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Must learn to use this Ping facility properly. KJP1 (talk) 17:43, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well it's good timing anyway as I've just withdrawn Irataba. I might have a few more hours break from FAC though :-)♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:14, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fine by me! Hchc2009 (talk) 19:23, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll nom it, no worries.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:26, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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