Caernarfon Castle: one of the best preserved medieval castles in Britain and a world heritage site.
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What a beautiful building. It is easy to see the horizontal stripes in the stonework. Edward I intended to link his castle at Caernarfon, as well as his reign, to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul) and the Roman Empire. He hoped that this and his propaganda would make him the successor to Emperor Constantine.
Why visit Caernarfon Castle?
Walking around the outside of the castle, you will see just how big a castle’s wall can be and how it appears, even today, to be totally impregnable.
There is no other castle like it in Britain, with twelve, stunning, polygonal towers. It is described by Malcolm Hislop as, “Edward’s definitive castle, and his most ambitious project, when considering its sheer size and its elaborate town walls”.
There are lots of things to explore inside the castle, so many battlements to walk around and spiral staircases to climb.
If you have been to other castles built in the 11th and 12th centuries you will notice how much castle design had transformed in the 13th century. At Caernarfon there are loads of innovations.
Caernarfon cost £27 000 to build which was a vast sum in the 13th century and lets you know what to expect. (By comparison, Harlech Castle, built at the same time cost £10 000, still a lot of money but small in comparison) The Treasury received less than this in taxation in a whole year!
The famous diarist, Dr Samuel Johnson described it as, “an edifice of stupendous majesty and strength”.
Building is taking place at the moment to improve visitor facilities, such as a lift to take people with mobility issues to the upper battlements to get a magnificent view of both the interior of the castle as well as the environment in which it is situated. There are also plans for virtual reality tours.
A great time can be had exploring the 800 yards of town walls together with 8 towers and 2 twin towered gateways.
What is there to see at Caernarfon ?
Edward I wanted to demonstrate his power and conquest to the Welsh people in 1283 by building the mightiest castle in Wales. Dr Marc Morris in his book “Castle”, states that it was “a castle that was a royal palace, an impregnable fortress, an administrative centre for his new dominions and a grand statement that Wales had become part of a new British Empire”.
How impressive are these polygonal towers? There are loads of merlons and arrow loops to make this castle highly impregnable. However, it was captured in 1294, by the Welsh led by Madog ap Llwelyn, when it was not fully built. Even incomplete, it was still an incredible achievement to successfully attack and overrun it. Older castles had square towers and were superseded by round towers. The theory was that round towers could not easily be undermined and then destroyed. It was also easier to have covering fire of the full 180 degrees right up to the walls without any “blind spots”. Edward I went a stage further by building polygonal towers. The Eagle tower had 10 sides and 2 others had 8, all designed to make Caernarfon, his “stand out” castle.
Moving along the southern side of the castle invaders would have been faced with these high and very strong walls. It is easy to see what was considered a unique feature of Caernarfon Castle, the red sandstone stripes or banding, set amongst white limestone blocks. It was the fashion of the times to whitewash the walls and if you look carefully at castles such as Conwy, it is not difficult to find patches of medieval whitewash. However, to make Caernarfon extra special, red bands of sandstone were designed and nothing was whitewashed.
A photo I took of a castle and town walls in Istanbul when travelling down the Bosphorus.
The stripes on the walls at Caernarfon are unique in Britain but not in the world, according to Dr Arnold Taylor, Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments 1961-70. He argued that the idea of stripes came from castles and walls in and around Istanbul (original name Constantinople). Creating the stripes in his Caernarfon castle linked Edward I to Constantine and the image of an Emperor. See the history section for more links.
Istanbul (Constantinople) again. The left hand polygonal tower looks similar to those of Caernarfon.
Contrary to Taylor’s views are these photos. On the left Windsor Castle’s lines and on the right, red tile lines across two Roman Fortress towers forming part of Portchester castle.
In his book, “James of St George and the castles of the Welsh Wars”, Malcolm Hislop suggests that stripes in castle walls was not so unfamiliar to English castles and Roman fortresses as we have been led to believe. Above are two examples: on the right hand side are two photos from the Roman Fortress of Portchester showing red bands of tiles amongst the stonework and on the left is a photo I took recently of Windsor Castle, in poor weather and light, showing parallel lines across its walls.
The various features of Caernarfon Castle.
The Queen’s gate.
Moving further around the castle in an anti-clockwise direction you will be able to see the “Queen’s Gate”. On the right side of the photo you can see a section of the town walls. Originally, the Queen’s gate was approached by a ramp and a drawbridge and was used to resupply the castle from ships pulling up nearby. Edward I’s philosophy was to construct castles that could be resupplied by sea in the case of siege warfare. In the past, the Welsh had been successful in blockading castles owned by the English and so from now on, this tactic was doomed to failure. Unfortunately, the gate was never completed.
An information board at the castle explaining the special arrow loops at Caernarfon.
Caernarfon has these special, if not unique, arrow loops whereby, in relative safety, crossbow bolts can be shot in three different directions. The top photo shows what you can see from the outside, whereas the second photo shows what can be seen from the inside. The bottom photo is from an information board from the inside of the castle. Dr Marc Morris describes this as, “one of the most formidable concentrations of firepower to be found in the Middle Ages”.
The “King’s Gate”.
This is the main entrance to the castle and, as a consequence, it has some key defences to prevent incursion. In front of this side of the castle, was a ditch, 50 feet wide and 24 feet deep and obviously a substantial drawbridge. The entrance is flanked by twin towers with numerous arrow loops pointing in different directions to take out any approaching attacker with crossbow bolts. The entrance comprised of 5 sets of sturdy oak doors alternating with 6 portcullises.
As mentioned above, 6 portcullises were built into the entrance.
Holes for killing attackers and/or fire prevention.
Looking closer at the entrance, one can see murder holes. Arrows can be fired through these at anyone who gets caught between the portcullises. It used to be thought that horrible substances and rocks could be dropped down onto attackers from these holes but nowadays it is thought that water was tipped down through the holes to put out any fire that had been started by attackers to burn through the doors. This arrangement alone was meant to deter any possible attacker as well as impress visitors and show the strength of the English monarch..
To give you an idea of what a portcullis was like, the top photo shows a typical portcullis in position at Warwick Castle and the bottom photo shows you a portcullis from the “Bloody Tower” at the Tower of London
Not Edward I but his son Edward II stands above the entrance.
Moving around the castle we now come to the “Eagle Tower.”
This is one of the stand out features of Caernarfon Castle. It comprises of a basement, approximately 10.5 metres across at its widest and three storeys above. People coming to the castle by water would enter it through the basement of the Eagle Tower. The strength of the tower can be gauged by the 5.4 metre wide walls! Nothing could knock them down.
The Eagle Tower gets its name from the stone eagle at the top along with a load of heads. I believe that the much eroded eagle is the second protrusion from the left
Looking from the ‘Upper Ward” to the “Lower Ward” with the Eagle Tower in the distance.
The Chamberlain Tower
The south side of the castle.
You can see here how the defence is arranged with three different tiers for crossbowmen to fire their bolts at the enemy with a fair degree of protection. The long wall walk and passages mean that reinforcements can safely get to any part of the castle that is under attack.
Passage way to move around the castle in safety when under attack.
Within the walls there are various exhibitions
Looking down a typical spiral staircase. Note they were designed for right hand swordsmen defending the castle and looking down on the attacker coming up. The attacker, being probably right handed, has his sword close to the central pillar and thus restricting his movement. No restrictions for the right handed defender looking down.
The wall walk, is easy to get around and gives some excellent views.
Exhibits from the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in the Queen’s Tower.
A Royal Welsh Fusilier in the trenches of World War One.
Audio visual presentation on the history of Caernarfon Castle
In one of the buildings there is a very informative and colourful presentation on the history of Caernarfon Castle. It is well worth a visit. It begins with the ancient Welsh story called “The dream of Macsen Wledig”. Macsen aka Maximus, was a Roman emperor who had become exhausted after a day’s hunting and fell into a deep sleep and then started to dream. He dreamt that he was travelling over mountains, along rivers and valleys from Rome to Wales when he came across a big city and a huge fleet of ships. One of the ships took him to a castle half covered in gold, silver and precious jewels. It was situated where a river met the sea and later on the story refers to Snowdonia and Anglesey. On entering the great hall he came across a beautiful maiden but then, much to his annoyance, he woke up! He had now to go on a quest to find the maiden. He eventually found her at a place where a river met the sea and a castle had been built and quickly married her. The location of the castle in the story was perfect for Edward I because he was building a castle in a similar place to that mentioned in the tale and he could claim a link back to Emperor Maximus. To add to this, an imperial eagle was carved out of stone and placed on the biggest tower, the Eagle tower. To take matters further, Maximus was the son of Emperor Constantine, the man venerated for bringing about Christianity to the Empire and building the new imperial capital, Constantinople. As mentioned earlier, experts explain the red bands in the walls by linking them to Constantinople, Constantine and Maximus.
Edward was also fascinated with the legend of King Arthur, a king who united the Britons and so was a good role model. It was also a justification for conquering both Wales and Scotland. In 1338 he facilitated the “reburial of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere” at Glastonbury Abbey (the monks swore that they were the actual bodies) and, later on, built Arthur’s Round Table which is now on display at Winchester Castle. He even organised a “Round Table Tournament in Wales. All of this was done to aggrandise Edward and make him unchallengeable.
Town walls
If you have time, go for a walk around the town walls. They stretch for over 800 yards and are studded with 8 towers and 2 twin towered gateways. Twenty ship loads of timber from Liverpool were imported to create a palisade to protect the builders of the castle in the early stages of construction. This was then replaced with the stone walls that you can see in these photos.
Town walls at the opposite end of the castle
What is the History of Caernarfon Castle?
For the full story of Edward I and the creation of the “Iron Ring” group off castles see our blog “ Why did Edward I build castles in North Wales?
Caernarfon Castle came about after Edward I decided that he needed to control the whole of Wales once and for all after yet another costly war in 1282-3. His castles were to be accompanied by a new town, that was to be populated by English inhabitants and town walls . They were to provide garrison soldiers for the castle, provisions and income from taxation.
Each castle, including Caernarfon, was to be on the coast so that a besieging army would not succeed ever again. Siege warfare was a favoured and successful Welsh tactic and these new locations would put a stop to it.
A Welsh royal court had existed in Caernarfon since 1115 and this was now to be replaced by a representative of the English King’s residence and an administrative centre.
Caernarfon Castle would be built over the former motte and bailey castle as well as being the mightiest castle the Welsh would ever have seen and so, intimidate the Welsh into submission. He hoped that linking Caernarfon to Welsh legends and the Roman Empire would also strengthen his position. He believed that the Welsh would never contemplate rebellion faced with “the Iron Ring” of castles.
Work began in the summer of 1283 and went on until about 1330, with a break in 1284 when part of it was destroyed by rebels. Thousands of Englishmen were brought in from all over England to complete the building project at a cost of £27,000 a vast sum in those days.
25th April 1284. The birth of the Prince of Wales.
Legend has it that Edward I’s son, Prince Edward of Caernarfon was born to Queen Eleanor in the Eagle Tower. He was to become the Prince of Wales because he had all the required qualifications. Notably, he was born in Wales and fitted the part because he could not speak a word of English. The fact that he couldn’t speak any words in any language was ignored by Edward I, although it took until 1301 for him to be officially made the Prince of Wales with its powers and revenues from Welsh crown lands. Prince Edward did have an older brother, Alfonso, but he had died 5 months after Prince Edward’s birth and this left Prince Edward as the eldest son of the king. Unfortunately, the qualifications and story of his birth were only written down 300 years later and so we are not certain how much of it is true . Ever since then, the eldest son of the king automatically became the Prince of Wales. All trace of the Welsh Royal family was now disappearing.
1294 another Welsh uprising
Despite the death of Llwelyn and all of Edward’s plans, the Welsh rose once more, this time some of the rebels were led by a distant cousin of Llwelyn called Madog ap Llwelyn whilst others were locally led. Caernarfon, together with Edward’s castles at Conwy and Harlech were all attacked with the rebels being successful against the unfinished Caernarfon. The town walls were breached and the castle taken. Once inside, everything that could burn was set on fire. Royal officials at the castle such as the sheriff and English merchants (burgesses) from the town were slaughtered.
Edward had been planning to invade France and so he used the army and equipment that he had got ready for the French campaign, to defeat the Welsh rebels. Thirty-five thousand troops bound for France were now turned around to take on the rebels, his biggest army ever to take on and defeat the Welsh.
1400 Owain Glyn Dwr’s rebellion.
In 1403 and 1404, Caernarfon successfully withstood being besieged by Own Glyn Dwr and his French allies. The rebellion continued in varying intensity until 1409. Owain was never captured despite large rewards and offers of a pardon and he acquired a heroic status whereby, one day he would return to defeat the English. Shakespeare also included him in his play, Henry IV part 1.
Essential information
Getting there;
RoadA4085, A487(T), B4366. Sat Nav Postcode LL55 2AY There are many car parks in and around Caernarfon town, including a long stay public car park at the waterfront, adjacent to the castle.
Rail16km/10mls Bangor, on the Crewe-Bangor/Holyhead route. For further information, please contact: Traveline Cymru on 0871 200 2233 or National Rail Enquiries on 08457 48 49 50.
Bus200m/220yards Caernarfon Penllyn, route No 5/5A/5B, Bangor-Caernarfon.
Tickets
During the Covid crisis you cannot buy tickets at the castle entrance. Contact https://www.cadwmembership.service.gov.wales/events/ Tickets have to be purchased online in advance. We actually saw people turned away because they had not purchased tickets online. No tickets can be purchased at the castle.
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