Caernarfon Castle
Caernarfon Castle | |
---|---|
Castell Caernarfon | |
River Seiont | |
Coordinates | 53°08′21″N 4°16′37″W / 53.1393°N 4.2769°W |
Type | Castle |
Site information | |
Open to the public | Yes |
Website | Caernarfon Castle |
Part of | Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd |
Criteria | Cultural: i, iii, iv |
Reference | 374 |
Inscription | 1986 (10th Session) |
Listed Building – Grade I | |
Official name | Caernarfon Castle[1] |
Designated | 31 March 1983[1] |
Reference no. | 3814[1] |
Caernarfon Castle (Welsh: Castell Caernarfon; Welsh pronunciation: [kastɛɬ kaɨrˈnarvɔn]) is a medieval fortress in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. The first fortification on the site was a motte-and-bailey castle built in the late 11th century, which King Edward I of England began to replace with the current stone structure in 1283. The castle and town established by Edward acted as the administrative centre of north Wales, and as a result the defences were built on a grand scale. There was a deliberate link with Caernarfon's Roman past—nearby is the Roman fort of Segontium—and the castle's walls are reminiscent of the Walls of Constantinople.[2]
While the castle was under construction,
Despite its dilapidated condition, during the
Background
The first fortifications at Caernarfon were built by the Romans. Their
Early castle
Following the
Edwardian castle
War broke out again between England and Wales on 22 March 1282. The Welsh leader, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, died later that year on 11 December. His brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd continued to fight against the English, but in 1283 Edward I was victorious.[9] Edward marched through northern Wales, capturing castles such as that at Dolwyddelan, and establishing his own at Conwy. War finally drew to a close in May 1283 when Dolbadarn Castle, Dafydd ap Gruffudd's last castle, was captured. Shortly afterwards, Edward began building castles at Harlech and Caernarfon. The castles of Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech were the most impressive of their time in Wales, and their construction—along with other Edwardian castles in the country—helped establish English rule.[10] The master mason responsible for the design and construction of the castle was probably James of Saint George, an experienced architect and military engineer who played an important role in building the Edwardian castles in Wales.[11] According to the Flores Historiarum, during the construction of the castle and planned town, the body of the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus was discovered, and Edward I ordered its reburial in a local church.[12]
The construction of the new stone castle was part of a programme of building which transformed Caernarfon; town walls were added, connected to the castle, and a new quay was built. The earliest reference to building at Caernarfon dates from 24 June 1283, when a ditch had been dug separating the site of the castle from the town to the north. A bretagium, a type of stockade, was created around the site to protect it while the permanent defences were under construction. Timber was shipped from as far away as Liverpool.[10] Stone was quarried from nearby places, such as from Anglesey and around the town.[13] A force of hundreds worked on the excavation of the moat and digging the foundations for the castle. As the site expanded, it began to encroach on the town; houses were cleared to allow the construction. Residents were not paid compensation until three years later. While the foundations for the stone walls were being created, timber-framed apartments were built for Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, his queen. They arrived at Caernarfon on either 11 or 12 July 1283 and stayed for over a month.[11]
Construction at Caernarfon Castle continued over the winter of 1283–84. The extent of completion is uncertain, although architectural historian Arnold Taylor speculated that when Edward and Eleanor visited again in Easter 1284 the Eagle Tower may have been complete.[14] The Statute of Rhuddlan, enacted on 3 March 1284, made Caernarfon a borough and the administrative centre of the county of Gwynedd.[Gwynedd was not a county.][15] According to tradition, Edward II was born at Caernarfon on 25 April 1284.[14][16] Edward was created Prince of Wales in 1301, with control over Wales and its incomes. Since then the title has traditionally been held by the eldest son of the monarch. According to a famous legend, the king had promised the Welsh that he would name "a prince born in Wales, who did not speak a word of English" and then produced his infant son to their surprise; but the story may well be apocryphal, as it can only be traced to the 16th century.[17] In 1284, Caernarfon was defended by a garrison of forty men, more than the thirty-strong garrisons at Conwy and Harlech. Even in peace time, when most castles would have a guard of only a few men, Caernarfon was defended by between twenty and forty people due to its importance.[18]
By 1285, Caernarfon's town walls were mostly complete. At the same time work continued on the castle. Spending on construction was negligible from 1289 and accounts end in 1292.[19] Edward I's campaign of castle-building in Wales cost £80,000 between 1277 and 1304, and £95,000 between 1277 and 1329;[20] by 1292 £12,000 had been spent on the construction of Caernarfon's castle—of which the southern façade was furthest along—and town walls. As the southern wall and town walls completed a defensive circuit around Caernarfon, the plan was to build the castle's northern façade last.[17]
In 1294,
... to cause 100 suitable masons experienced in such work as the king is engaged upon at Kaernaruan to be chosen in the town of Chester and in other parts within his bailiwick, and to cause them to come with their tools to Kaernaruan without delay, there to do what Edmund the king's brother shall enjoin upon them, as the king needs masons for his work there at once
A letter to the Earl of Chester in 1295, asking him to send masons to Caernarfon urgently.[26]
From 1284 to 1330, when accounts end, between £20,000 and £25,000 was spent on Caernarfon's castle and town walls.[27] Such a sum was enormous and dwarfed the spending on castles such as Dover and Château Gaillard, which were amongst the most expensive and impressive fortifications of the later 12th and early 13th centuries.[28] Subsequent additions to Caernarfon were not major, and what remains of the castle is substantially from the Edwardian period. Despite the expense, much of what was planned for the castle was never carried out. The rears of the King's Gate (the entrance from the town) and the Queen's Gate (the entrance from the south-east) were left unfinished, and foundations in the castle's interior mark where buildings would have stood had work continued.[27]
Later history
For around two centuries after the conquest of Wales, the arrangements established by Edward I for the governance of the country remained in place. During this time the castle was constantly garrisoned, and Caernarfon was effectively the capital of north Wales.
In Caernarfon's case the walls of the town and castle remained in good condition, while features which required maintenance—such as roofs—were in a state of decay and much timber was rotten. Conditions were so poor that of the castle's seven towers and two gatehouses, only the Eagle Tower and the King's Gate had roofs by 1620. The domestic buildings inside the castle had been stripped of anything valuable, such as glass and iron. Despite the disrepair of the domestic buildings, the castle's defences were in a good enough state that during the English Civil War in the mid-17th century it was garrisoned by Royalists. Caernarfon Castle was besieged three times during the war. The constable was John Byron, 1st Baron Byron, who surrendered Caernarfon to Parliamentarian forces in 1646. It was the last time Caernarfon Castle saw fighting. Although it was ordered in 1660 that the castle and town walls should be dismantled, the work was aborted early on and may never have started.[29]
Despite avoiding
Caernarfon Castle is now a major tourist attraction, with over 205,000 people visiting the attraction in 2018.[40] A three-year restoration project, costing £5M and concluding in April 2023, has opened up previously-closed areas of the castle, and enabled wheelchair access to the battlements.[41]
Architecture
The architect, Master James of Saint George,[42] was partly influenced by a desire to make the structure impressive as a symbol of the new English rule in Wales. This was particularly acute as Caernarfon was made the centre of government in the northern part of the country. The Edwardian castle's layout was mostly dictated by the lie of the land, although the inclusion of the previous castle's motte played a part. It is a narrow enclosure,[43] roughly in the shape of a figure eight.[44] It was divided into two enclosures, upper and lower "wards", in the east and west respectively, with the eastern containing royal accommodation, although this was never completed. The divide was supposed to be established by a range of fortified buildings, however these too were never built.[28]
Studded along the curtain wall are several polygonal towers from which flanking fire could be deployed. There were battlements on the tops of walls and towers, and along the southern face were firing galleries; it was intended to include galleries along the northern face but they were never built. In the opinion of military historian Allen Brown, this combined to make Caernarfon Castle "one of the most formidable concentrations of fire-power to be found in the Middle Ages".[28]
Most of the northern towers had four storeys including a basement.
Caernarfon's appearance differs from that of other Edwardian castles through the use of banded coloured stone in the walls and in its polygonal, rather than round, towers. There has been extensive academic debate over the interpretation of these features.[48] Historian Arnold Taylor argued that the design of the castle was a representation of the Walls of Constantinople. The conscious use of imagery from the Byzantine Roman Empire was therefore an assertion of authority by Edward I, and influenced by Breudwyt Macsen Wledig, the legendary dream of Magnus Maximus, a Roman emperor. In his dream Maximus had seen a fort, "the fairest that man ever saw", within a city at the mouth of a river in a mountainous country and opposite an island. Edward interpreted this to mean Segontium was the city of Maximus' dream and drew on the imperial link when building Caernarfon Castle.[49] The purported discovery of Magnus's remains and the addition of carved imperial eagles to one of the towers may have been intended to reinforce this narrative.[50] Recent work by historian Abigail Wheatley suggests that the design of Caernarfon was indeed an assertion of Edward's authority, but that it drew on imagery from Roman sites in Britain with the intent of creating an allusion to Arthurian legitimacy for the king.[51]
There were two main entrances, one leading from the town (the King's Gate) and one allowing direct access to the castle without having to proceed through the town (the Queen's Gate). Their form was typical of the time: a passage between two flanking towers.
While the
Constables of Caernarfon Castle
Before 1835 the Constable of the castle served as mayor of Caernarfon. A list of the constables from 1284 to 1835 is thus available at the Caernarfon Royal Town Council site, below.
- 1890–1908: John Henry Puleston[58]
- 1908–1945: PC
- 1945–1963: Hon. William Ormsby-Gore
- 1963–2017: The Earl of Snowdon, GCVO
- 2018–present: Edmund Seymour Bailey, Lord Lieutenant of Gwynedd[59]
See also
References
- Notes
- ^ National Historic Assets of Wales. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
- ^ Wheatley 2010, p. 137
- ^ a b Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd, UNESCO, retrieved 15 August 2010
- ^ a b Taylor 1997, p. 4
- ^ a b Taylor 1997, p. 5
- ^ Taylor 1997, pp. 6–7
- ^ a b Taylor 1997, p. 7
- ^ Wilson & Hurst 1970, p. 179
- ^ Smith 2004
- ^ a b Taylor 1997, p. 9
- ^ a b Taylor 1997, p. 10
- ^ Taylor 1986, p. 78
- ^ Taylor 1986, p. 94
- ^ a b Taylor 1997, pp. 10–11
- ^ a b c Taylor 1997, p. 13
- National Museum Wales, archived from the originalon 21 May 2010, retrieved 18 July 2010
- ^ a b c Taylor 1997, p. 12
- ^ a b Friar 2003, p. 124
- ^ Taylor 1997, p. 11
- ^ McNeill 1992, pp. 42–43
- ^ Taylor 1986, p. 85
- ^ Taylor 1986, p. 86
- ^ a b c Taylor 1997, p. 15
- ^ Taylor 1986, p. 90
- ^ Taylor 1986, p. 92
- ^ Calendar Close Rolls 1288–96, p 413. Quoted in Taylor 1986, p. 86
- ^ a b Taylor 1997, pp. 16–17
- ^ a b c d e Allen Brown 1984, p. 87
- ^ a b c d Taylor 1997, p. 19
- ^ Davies 1995, pp. 68–69
- ^ Davies 1995, p. 105
- ^ Avent 2010, pp. 143–148
- ^ Taylor 1997, pp. 20–21
- ^ Windsor, HRH the Duke of (1951). A King's Story. London: Cassell and Co.
- ^ "Criccieth Church of Christ and David Lloyd George". Churches of Christ. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
- ^ Taylor 1997, p. 21
- ^ "About Cadw". Cadw website. Cadw, a division of the Welsh Government. 2008. Archived from the original on 29 June 2011. Retrieved 11 August 2008.
- ^ UNESCO Constitution, UNESCO, archived from the original on 29 March 2019, retrieved 15 August 2010
- ^ New Entrance Pavilion Completed at Caernarfon Castle, Donald Insall Associates, archived from the original on 9 October 2015, retrieved 2 October 2015
- ^ "Evaluation of Tourism Attractor Destinations: interim report". GOV.WALES. 30 January 2020. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
- ^ Morris, Steven (27 April 2023). "Caernarfon Castle's £5M revamp takes its story beyond English imperialism". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
- ^ "Caernarfon Castle, Gwynedd: 'One of the great buildings of the Middle Ages'". Country Life. 3 February 2023. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
- ^ Allen Brown 1984, p. 86
- ^ a b Taylor 1997, p. 25
- ^ a b c Taylor 1997, p. 30
- ^ Taylor 1986, p. 98
- ^ Taylor 1997, p. 29
- ^ Wheatley 2010, p. 129
- ^ Allen Brown 1984, p. 88
- ^ Moffett, Fazio & Wodehouse 2003, p. 58
- ^ Wheatley 2010, p. 136
- ^ a b Taylor 1997, p. 26
- ^ Taylor 1997, p. 38
- ^ Taylor 1997, p. 35
- ^ Taylor 1997, p. 28
- ^ Taylor 1997, p. 33
- ^ Brears 2010, p. 91
- ^ Vol. 1898: A genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and baronetage of the British Empire. Henry Colburn. 1898. p. 1686.
- ^ Williams, Kelly; Forgrave, Andrew (27 September 2018). "This is who the Queen has appointed Constable of Caernarfon Castle". North Wales Live. Reach PLC.
- Bibliography
- Allen Brown, Reginald (1984), The Architecture of Castles: A Visual Guide, B. T. Batsford, ISBN 0-7134-4089-9
- Avent, Richard (2010), "The Conservation and Restoration of Caernarfon Castle 1845–1912", in Williams, Diane; Kenyon, John (eds.), The Impact of Edwardian Castles in Wales, Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books, pp. 140–149, ISBN 978-1-84217-380-0
- Brears, Peter (2010), "Food Supply and Preparation at the Edwardian Castles", in Williams, Diane; Kenyon, John (eds.), The Impact of Edwardian Castles in Wales, Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books, pp. 85–98, ISBN 978-1-84217-380-0
- Davies, R. R. (1995), The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dŵr, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-820508-1
- Friar, Stephen (2003), The Sutton Companion to Castles, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7509-3994-2
- McNeill, Tom (1992), English Heritage Book of Castles, London: English Heritage and B. T. Batsford, ISBN 0-7134-7025-9
- Moffett, Marian; Fazio, Michael W.; Wodehouse, Lawrence (2003). A World History of Architecture. London: Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 978-1780671116.
- Phillips, Alan (1961). Caernarvon Castle Official Guidebook. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO).
- Smith, J. B. (2004). "Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (d. 1282)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16875. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.) (subscription required)
- Taylor, Arnold (1986) [1963], The Welsh Castles of Edward I, London: Hambledon Press, ISBN 0-907628-71-0
- Taylor, Arnold (1997) [1953], Caernarfon Castle and Town Walls (4th ed.), Cardiff: Cadw – Welsh Historic Monuments, ISBN 1-85760-042-8
- Wheatley, Abigail (2010), "Caernarfon Castle and its Mythology", in Williams, Diane; Kenyon, John (eds.), The Impact of Edwardian Castles in Wales, Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books, pp. 129–139, JSTOR j.ctt1cd0nkc.18
- Wilson, David M; Hurst, D Gillian (1970), "Medieval Britain in 1969" (PDF), doi:10.1080/00766097.1970.11735332, archived from the original(PDF) on 17 December 2010, retrieved 22 April 2010
Further reading
- Coldstream, Nicola (2003), "Architects, Advisers and Design at Edward I's Castles in Wales", Architectural History, 46: 19–36, JSTOR 1568798(subscription required)
- Swallow, Rachel (2019). "Living the dream: the legend, lady and landscape of Caernarfon Castle, Gwynedd, North Wales". Archaeologia Cambrensis. 168: 153–196.
- Swallow, Rachel (2021). "Cherchez la femme: a Fresh Interdisciplinary and Multi-Period Approach to Understanding Gender, Place and Space at Caernarfon Castle in Gwynedd, Wales". Château Gaillard: études de castellologie médiévale. 29.