Tommy Cooper Statue

A life-sized bronze of the comedian and magician Tommy Cooper, complete with his trademark fez and a hand half-raised in mid-gag, on the edge of Castle Lane just across the moat from the castle gate. Cooper was one of the great British comics of the twentieth century — his catchphrase "just like that" entered the language — and his death live on stage in 1984 is part of British television lore.

A short stop on the way in or out of the castle. Photographs with the fez are obligatory.

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Cooper was born above his parents' fish-and-chip shop in Caerphilly in 1921 but moved to Devon as a small child and never lived in Wales again. The town has nonetheless adopted him with enthusiasm — the statue was unveiled in 2008 by Anthony Hopkins, a fellow Welshman who paid for the casting himself.

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