Castle Tripping · Oct 4, 01:18 PM
Today we ventured into North Wales to see castles. We drove for 2 hours through Snowdonia to reach Conwy Castle. Conwy, like many other castles in Wales, was built at the end of the 13th century by Edward I as part of his conquest of Wales. He defeated Prince Llywelyn, and to make his victory stick he created a series of English colony towns in Wales. Most of these towns had really impressive castles, which are considered the pinnacle of medieval castle building. They are really amazing castles – just about impossible to attack successfully, but still with a certain elegance and luxury.
So we started with Conwy:
They are doing some restoration work on the castle, but even all the modern scaffolding doesn’t mar the impressiveness of the original building:
You can climb up to the top of most of the towers, so we had some amazing views of the castle, the town, and the surrounding countryside:
Not surprisingly, the original wooden floors of the towers no longer exist, but it’s neat to see the hollow shells of the towers, with all of their windowseats and fireplaces:
The other neat thing about Conwy is that when Edward built the castle, he also built a wall to contain the town. The wall originally went all the way around the town – about three quarters of a mile of wall, punctuated with round towers. Some of the wall is gone today, and they have knocked holes in the wall for trains and cars to go through, but the vast majority of it is intact and you can walk along the top of it. Here’s a picture of the castle as seen from the far end of the town wall:
From Conwy, we drove about a half an hour (we even got to drive on a dual carriageway!) to see Beaumaris Castle. Like Conwy, Beaumaris was built as a part of Edward I’s plan to subdue Wales. It was designed by the same architect, Master James of St. George. It is a textbook example of a concentric castle: two concentric walls, the outer shorter than the inner. Like Conwy, it is just about impossible to successfully attack. Unfortunately, Beaumaris was never finished – the top story was never added. It is a really impressive edifice, though, and an amazing example of the genius of defensive building in the Middle Ages. It has a lovely moat, with some lovely swans in it:
This inviting little bridge into the outermost gatehouse would have originally been a drawbridge, with much more threatening portcullises behind it:
Once you enter that gatehouse, you have to go around a bend to get to a second gatehouse in the inner wall:
Once you are inside, the castle is impressively huge, but also elegant in its symmetry. You can tell that it was originally intended to be a beautiful building as well as an imposing one:
There is a chapel in the castle, and they have kept the walls whitewashed as they would have originally been. The acoustics in here were incredible:
Beaumaris is also full of hollow towers: in this one, the remnants of a spiral staircase have become a perching place for plants.
We’re all fairly tired, especially Jonathan (who’s been doing the driving), but we’re hoping we can go back north again tomorrow and see a few more.
— MoJo
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And a Very Happy Birthday!
— pappacito · Oct 4, 06:04 PM · #
Happy Birthday Jo!!!Love the pix…envious much!!!
— Granny Goodwitch · Oct 5, 09:41 AM · #
its great to see the gorgeous interior of conwy! – it was closed, so i got to admire it from across the road. at beaumaris, though, i did an excellent job of demonstrating the “watch your head, it will not win against low castle ceilings” graphical signs everywhere! yargh!
— meghandeath · Oct 17, 05:30 PM · #