Photo “On the Castle”, Credit: Oliver Nute
From Celtic Sword Fencing Club:
Celtic Sword Fencing Club’s inaugural Clash in the Castle was held in the ruins of the beautiful Coity Castle on Sunday 22nd June 2025.
Clash in the Castle is intended to be a friendly, invitation only, non-ranking match, giving fencers in South Wales opportunity to fence outdoors in a castle, as well as some competition experience for those new to the sport.
Cadw, Welsh Government’s historic environment service and the guardians of Coity Castle, granted permission to Celtic Sword Fencing Club to use the grounds, with a second “backup” date should rain stop play (thankfully this wasn’t required). We are very grateful to Cadw for allowing us to use Coity Castle for this event.
British Fencing also granted Celtic Sword Club the community license for the match, for which we are thankful.
You can find out more about Cadw and Coity Castle here: Castell Coety, Cadw
Read on for the full report on the day:
Whilst the black clouds above threatened rain, they definitely added some drama to the day, and thankfully it remained dry (if very windy…) for both the beginner and improvers match in the morning and the experienced match in the afternoon.
Proceedings kicked off at 10am with a match for fencers who are new and improving, with participants from both Celtic Sword and Whitchurch Fencing clubs in a poule unique format – where the total hits, not victories, counted towards overall score.
The scores were tight through to the end with some excellent fencing from Whitchurch’s improvers and Celtic Sword Club’s own beginner and young fencers. Carl from Whitchurch picked up the bronze medal and the winner was decided in a fence off between Ioan and Bogdan from Whitchurch, with Ioan claiming victory!
The afternoon match saw experienced fencers from Celtic Sword Fencing club, Cardiff Academy of Fencing, and Whitchurch take to the pistes for another fast and furious poule unique. It was a matter of a couple of points between each fencer, with Marc from Whitchurch Fencing Club taking the gold, our very own Max from Celtic Sword claiming silver and Andrea from Whitchurch Fencing Club taking bronze.
On top of the prizes for competitors, Celtic Sword also presented the Simon Roe Spirit of Fencing Award.
This award is named after a member of Celtic Sword Fencing Club who sadly passed away last year. He was a strong advocate of grace, good sports-personship, camaraderie and the enjoyment of fencing as a sport, and we felt this was an appropriate way to honour his memory.
Celtic Sword intend this to be an annual award, presented at Clash in the Castle, and it is given to the fencer in the beginner and improvers match who has shown the most sportspersonship throughout the day. The decision on who to present this award to was unanimous as everyone within Celtic Sword’s committee felt she went above and beyond in both her own fencing and how she helped others and conducted herself throughout the day, including remaining to help referee the afternoon matches!
We are all really proud that Genova-Rose from Celtic Sword Fencing Club is the first recipient of the Simon Roe Spirit of Fencing award.
We would like to make special mention to Ruth Silverstone and family for creating the beautiful wooden trophies for the Improvers match and the Simon Roe Spirit of Fencing award – both of which were made using Ash from their own land.
The matches were followed by a social and barbeque locally, which allowed all fencers involved to come together and enjoy the remainder of the day, as well as refuel after a days’ fencing!
Feedback from the Clash in the Castle has been excellent, with all fencers excited to have been able to fence in the grounds of a beautiful ruined castle.
And finally, we would like to thank Celtic Sword committee members for all of the hard work that has gone on in the background, and on the day for organising this unique event… We will return!
Celtic Sword Fencing Club is based in Morriston, Swansea, specialising in epee and seated fencing.
You can find out more about Celtic Sword on our website at www.celticsword.cymru
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