World Heritage in Wales - Beaumaris castle

 Wales is often described as a 'country of castles', with the remains of perhaps over 600 castles dotting the Welsh landscape. That reminds us the the Welsh were feisty, and pretty keen on defending the territory they held.

Not all Welsh castles were built by the Welsh. Many of the well known and best preserved castles in Wales were built by invaders to hold onto territory they had taken control of. The most famous invaders were the Normans, who built the first stone castle in Wales - Chepstow. They went on to build a number of castles across south east Wales, the remains of which are visible today.

However, Edward I, the King of England in the late 1200s, took castle building to a completely new level. He was so determined to subdue the Welsh, and bring them and their lands under his control, that he built a series of castles along the north and north west coast of Wales, all designed to be supplied by sea. Four of those castles, Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Conwy & Harlech, and the town walls of Caernarfon and Conwy, were designated a world heritage site in 1986. The reason for this is that is that these are superb examples of castle design.

Beaumaris castle is perhaps the most perfect concentric castle design ever.  It's defences are impregnable. It's beautiful, but it was never finished - Edward I went off to fight the Scots, and ran out of money!

The stone it was built from was quarried locally, but the castle builders used two diferent colours to create a chequerboard design on the outer walls, as you can see in this photograph (click on the image to see a larger version):

The main entrance to the castle is pretty impressive. There was once a drawbridge here, and you can see the grooves where the portcullis once was, and several sets of murder holes in the ceiling. If that wasn't enough, there are arrowslits for the crossbowmen to shoot their bolts an unfriendly visitors!

If you got through the main castle entrance, you found that there was a castle within a castle, and this is the entrance way into the inner part of the castle - it's fearsome. There were several heavy wooden gates and portcullises, and many more murder holes. Imagine if you got into here and they shut the gates at both ends? Perfect killing zone.

And what were the defences protecting? These beautiful royal apartments. They may not look very grand now, but imagine large light airy rooms with window seats and huge fireplaces behind these huge windows. 

When the castle was built, most ordinary people lived in small one-roomed wattle and daub buildings with thatched roofs and no windows. This castle must have seemed the most fantastic place on earth to them. Edward I certainly intended it to impress, and also to be a massive symbol of his power. He moved a whole village to the other side of the island so that he could build this castle here - right in the centre of the view enjoyed by the Welsh Princes, at their home in Abergwyngregyn, across the Menai Straits.

Many of us don't appreciate the significance of religion in medieval Britain. Religion was all important. People paid 10% of their income to the church in tithes (taxes), their diet was determined by what the church decreed they could eat on any given day, they worshipped regularly, and dying without absolution was literally a fate worse than death, as it condemned people to purgatory, rather than going to heaven (if they had been good, or given enough money to the church) or hell.

In Beaumaris castle, they built a beautiful chapel, for the residents to worship in. The acoustics in the chapel are fantastic, it would have sounded amazing when hymns and chants were sung. It's also very ethereal, and it's the one place in the castle where you can begin to imagine the beauty of the architectural detail. A peaceful haven.

World heritage in Wales - Caernarfon castle

Wales is often described as a 'country of castles', with the remains of perhaps over 600 castles dotting the Welsh landscape. That reminds us the the Welsh were feisty, and pretty keen on defending the territory they held.

Not all Welsh castles were built by the Welsh. Many of the well known and best preserved castles in Wales were built by invaders to hold onto territory they had taken control of. The most famous invaders were the Normans, who built the first stone castle in Wales - Chepstow. They went on to build a number of castles across south east Wales, the remains of which are visible today.

However, Edward I, the King of England in the late 1200s, took castle building to a completely new level. He was so determined to subdue the Welsh, and bring them and their lands under his control, that he built a series of castles along the north and north west coast of Wales, all designed to be supplied by sea. Four of those castles, Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Conwy & Harlech, and the town walls of Caernarfon and Conwy, were designated a world heritage site in 1986. The reason for this is that is that these are superb examples of castle design.

Caernarfon castle was built as Edward I's administrative centre in north Wales.  It is the largest and most impressive of the castles he had built, but was never finished. The castle sits where the land meets the sea, with the river Arfon alongside. It was once the site of a small Roman fort, and perhaps an earlier Welsh built castle.

Unlike most of Edward's castles, this castle has no curves, or round towers, it is all flat walls and hexagonal sections. It was never designed to be rendered and limewashed, to be a shining white symbol of domination, as many castles were. 

Instead, it was built from huge blocks of finished stone, arranged in bands or stripes, around the walls. 

  

 The towers are exceptionally tall - imagine building these at a time when everything had to be done by hand? There may have been wooden scaffolding up the walls, and pulleys to lift the stone form the ground to working height, but ultimately each stone was moved and put in place by the hands of the castle builders, who were mainly from the south east of England, and paid pennies each week for doing this work. You can see the bands of different colours in the picture below (click on the image for a bigger version)

The interior of the castle is vast. The walls have corridors within, so that those who lived in the castle could walk around without going outdoors, also great protection in the unlikely event of arrows being shot over the high walls! The tall tower in the distance is the eagle tower, so called because there are carved stone eagles on the battlements. Edward I understood the power of symbols. Eryri - the Welsh name for Snowdon (heartland of the Welsh Princes) means 'place of the eagles'. He made Caernarfon castle the new 'place of the eagles', and home to the new Princes of Wales, beginning with his son, Edward II, the first of the new Princes. There's also a link back to earlier inhabitants of this place - the Romans - who often used the Eagle as one of their powerful symbols.

A closer view of the eagle tower - can you see the eagles perched on the battlements? The castle has recently had new interpretation installed, and there is an amazing life sized chessboard interpreting Edward I and his relationships of power on the ground floor, and an ethereal interpretation relating to Eleanor (Edward's wife) on another floor. Well worth a visit to have a look!

The picture below shows 'the Queen's gate'. The plan for this entrance to the castle was a ramp and drawbridge. Now, there is a viewing platform so that visitors inside the castle can look out over the 'Maes' - the open square in the town centre. When Prince Charles had his investiture here in 1969, he stood on this platform with Queen Elizabeth II and greeted the crowds surrounding the castle.

The castle has wonderful views across the Menai Straits and out to sea.  No boats could pass un-noticed, and the castle was designed to be supplied by sea, with a watergate opening onto the quayside which was built alongside the castle.

The main entrance to the castle is daunting. Above the archway there is a statue of Edward I, leaving no doubt about who the castle belonged to!  The rather beautiful windows above show us how elegant the accommodation within the castle was.

Look at the finely carved stone work. Imagine the hours it took the man with the hammer and chisel to make. Think about the very expensive hand made glass, probably transported from Europe on horseback or by sea, which filled the stone framework. Most ordinary people had never seen glass in the 1290s.

Caernarfon castle was built to dominate the Welsh people, but never fulfilled that purpose. Today it is conserved and is managed by the Welsh Government, and is one of the most iconic images of Wales. IT attracts many visitors to this corner of Wales, and the tourism trade in north west Wales would be much poorer without it. I wonder what Edward I would have made of that - the castle he built to subdue providing a living for many Welsh people?

World Heritage in Wales - Conwy castle

Wales is often described as a 'country of castles', with the remains of perhaps over 600 castles dotting the Welsh landscape. That reminds us the the Welsh were feisty, and pretty keen on defending the territory they held.

Not all Welsh castles were built by the Welsh. Many of the well known and best preserved castles in Wales were built by invaders to hold onto territory they had taken control of. The most famous invaders were the Normans, who built the first stone castle in Wales - Chepstow. They went on to build a number of castles across south east Wales, the remains of which are visible today.

However, Edward I, the King of England in the late 1200s, took castle building to a completely new level. He was so determined to subdue the Welsh, and bring them and their lands under his control, that he built a series of castles along the north and north west coast of Wales, all designed to be supplied by sea. Four of those castles, Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Conwy & Harlech, and the town walls of Caernarfon and Conwy, were designated a world heritage site in 1986. The reason for this is that is that these are superb examples of castle design.

Conwy castle is built on a rocky outcrop. This made building the castle a little trickier, but has advantages - stable and strong foundations, which can't be undermined by your enemies. As with Edward I's other castles in n orth Wales, the castle is built on the shore so that it could be supplied by sea, but another reason the castle was built on this spot is that it was on the opposite shore of the river Conwy to Deganwy castle, once an important castle of the Princes of Gwynedd. Building it here sent a message about power - 'here I am, right in your heartland, and I am here to stay'....

The castle was the first one of Edward I's castles built in Gwynedd (the old Welsh kingdom, not the modern county). Building it on the rocky outcrop limited the size of the castle, but raised it higher in the landscape than building it elsewhere. It is a compact castle of tall towers and contains grand accommodation, a chapel, and a prison.

As well as the castle, Edward had defensive walls built, which are just as formidable and impregnable as those of the castle. 

These were designed to surround the new town he had planned for this place. There was an originally an Abbey here, whose patrons had been Welsh princes, and he had the Abbey moved 20 or so miles south. All that remains of it is the church in the centre of town.  The town walls surround the town on 3 sides, with the fourth side of the town being protected by the sea.  There were only two gates in the town walls when they were built, which were easy to defend.

You can walk around the top of the town walls today, it's really interesting seeing the town from on high, you can see how it was all originally laid out. Plus the views of Deganwy, the surrounding countryside, and boats on the water are amazing.

Back to the castle....

The crenellations along the tops of the towers are huge, and each defensive wall has an arrowloop in it. This was a safe place for archers to work. The stone walkways are level, and there are drain holes, designed to take surface water away. Perhaps it rained a lot in Wales in the late 1200s?

The towers are tall, and the men inside the castle would have had excellent views from the top of these - no enemies would sneak past this castle un-noticed.

The accommodation within the castle included grand apartments, designed for Royal visits, but probably lived in by the first Constable of the castle - William de Cicun. As you can probably tell by the name, his family was French. In fact, many of the people who lived in the castle and within the town walls were of French ancersty, and there was even an Italian living ion the town in 1303, quite cosmopolitan! French was the language of the nobles, and it was heard on the streets of Conwy more often 700 years ago than it is today!

There are some stunning fireplaces in the castle. You can tell a lot from a fireplace. Small fireplaces are for keeping working people warm, and they would probably have warmed food over them too. You find these in guardrooms, and small 'offices'.

Large fireplaces are either for keeping people of high status warm in their spacious chambers, or in kitchens, where they were used to roast meat, and cook pottage as well as making sauces and custards and suchlike. This fireplace is located in the apartments, in what was probably a bedroom. Imagine being the boy that had to carry all the chopped wood up the spiral stairs to this room (and probably all the other rooms with fireplaces) every day? He'd be fit, and strong.

Here you can see the inside of the castle. Where there is grass now, there were once buildings against the castle walls - stables, storerooms, maybe accommodation for the grooms and men who guarded this castle on a daily basis. To the left of the image below, you can see an indication of the grandeur of this castle when it was built, the stonework is designed for looks as much as strength, and on the other side of that wall are the grand apartments and hall, which had elegant stone arches holding the roof up.

Of course, not everything stays the same forever. Thomas Telford came here and bridged the river Conwy with one of the first suspension bridges in the world in the 1820s. He mirrored the castle towers in his design, which you can see in the middle of the picture below. Part of the castle had to be demolished in order to anchor the suspension cables. Can you imagine that happening today?

Telford's bridge is only 2.5 wide, and was built to carry pedestrians and horse drawn coaches and carts. It wasn't really strong enough for heavy use by motor vehicles. When I was a young child, I regularly used to travel on the bus between Bangor and Chester with my mother. The bus used to stop on one side of the bridge, all the passengers had to get off, tthen he driver used to drive the bus across while we all walked, and then we got onto the bus again to resume our journey.

The suspension bridge was replaced by the modern road bridge to the left of the picture, in the early 1960s. The bridge to the right of the picture is a rail bridge, built in 1848 by another very famous Victorian - Robert Stephenson.