Shrieking in chiffon

When it was discovered that Zalim (ironically meaning, cruel) was in the company of two very young cubs, those at Ranthambore feared the worst: that, as an adult male, he would kill them. Instead, he surprised naturalists with his “motherly” behavior when he took in his twin daughters following the death of their mother.

At this time, science stated that tigers were only as social as mothers and cubs could go and that tiger fathers rarely interacted with their offspring. Zalim changed that when he was witnessed, month after month, caring for his daughters and teaching them how to hunt. Their relationship eventually ceased when the two girls were shifted to Sariska Tiger Reserve and Zalim went on to father another litter with the then-dominant tigress Sundari, the so-called Lady of the Lakes. When she too mysteriously disappeared, Zalim unsurprisingly took care of their cubs as well.

(source)

Warwick Castle - my favourite fun fact is that they have a working trebuchet (apparently the world's largest working siege engine) - not sure if they still do demonstration firings for it, but they once accidentally burned down a historic boathouse when they launched a flaming projectile from it for a special demonstration in 2015

Cardiff Castle - This one is my favourite for its complex building sequence that's still visible in the fabric of the castle. In the 1st to 3rd century it was a sequence of 4 Roman forts. You can still see parts of the Roman brick in the exterior walls. By the 15th century the castle was in a bit of disrepair because of a series of revolts and uprisings, and new lodging rooms were added on top of the 12th century walls. It was renovated again in the 18th century, but a 19th century owner thought it was too half hearted and remodelled it again to create a beautiful gothic revival folly with an astronomical clock tower. During WWII the outer walls were used as air raid shelters for the city, complete with kitchens, dormitories and first aid posts. While today it is a tourist attraction. With a dragon.

So I talked before about how Castell Coch was built by romantic lunatic the Marquis of Bute and his architect best mate William Burges, because they both had Views on what a proper castle should look like. But the Marquis also owned Cardiff Castle! He inherited it when he was just a year old, and grew up hating it because it wasn't suitably Goffik.

So, on coming of age, he decided to renovate. Apologies for the lack of image descriptions in these, I genuinely don't know how to describe most.

This is the clock tower and one detail from the outside. The inside, though, is fucking spectacular.

This is the smoking room, for example:

Yeah.

Inside the castle proper, they renovated everywhere; the banqueting hall, library, bedrooms, nursery, guest tower, and a whole bunch of others besides, many of which were named after the decoration they received such as the Chaucer Room and the Arab Room. The Arab Room is my personal favourite, actually, look at its ceiling:

While here's the banqueting hall, and its fireplace:

The library includes a sculpture of the tree of knowledge with monkeys on it looking at a book, which was a nod to the zippy new scientist Charles Darwin:

The Chaucer Room is in one of the towers, and is decorated with scenes from Canterbury Tales. Here is its fireplace:

But! The outside deserves love too! So they made a rooftop garden, and then created one of Cardiff's best loved landmarks: the Animal Wall, running around the castle grounds and modern day Bute Park, featuring stone carvings of both exotic and domestic animals on every other crenellation.

Although the animals have weird eyes. We deduct points for that.

Anyway, in addition to all that, the castle has a fairly lurid history, starting in Roman times, moving through such highlights as the Glyndŵr Rebellion and Hugh Despenser's Whole Shit, and winding up in the Second World War when air raid shelters were built in its grounds to save people's lives from the bombs. These days, it's right in the middle of Cardiff city centre, making it an excellent landmark for navigation and also, nowadays, it has a dragon.

BUT I KNOW A

BITCH

This is a peony: