NWM - August 2022

Page 39

s e l t s a C Top 10

Brush up on your history before venturing out this summer, and keep a few facts up your sleeve in bid to really impress the kids...

Beaumaris Beaumaris has been deemed as the most technically perfect castle in Britain. Featuring

Bodelwyddan

classic proportions and perfect

Bodelwyddan Castle is situated close to Glan Clwyd Hospital

symmetry, Beaumaris was built

near Rhyl. Originally built around 1460 by the Humphreys family

according to Edward I’s ingenious

of Anglesey as a manor house, Bodelwyddan’s most important

‘walls within walls’ plan on the

association was with the Williams-Wynn family, which

Isle of Anglesey. Work began in the summer of 1295, overseen

extended for around 200 years from 1690. It is now a Grade

by Master James of St George, but was never officially

II* listed building and is open to the public as a historic house

finished due to lack of funds. Work finally came to a halt in

museum with some very impressive gardens. And if you can’t fit

1330 – with the castle still not built to its intended height – by

everything in in one day, you can always stay at the castle hotel,

when a whopping £15,000 had been spent.

which has recently undergone a £6 million renovation.

Caernarfon Caernarfon is

Chirk

another of Edward

Chirk Castle was built on

I’s Welsh fortresses

the Welsh-English border

and, like the

in order to keep the Welsh

location of all of

under English rule. Again

his defences, the

the location of Chirk Castle

site of Caernarfon

was chosen extremely

castle was shrewdly

carefully in order to make

picked. The former site of a Norman motte and bailey

the most of its defensive abilities. Construction began in 1295 on a

castle and, before that, a Roman fort, Caernarfon is

rocky escarpment at the head of the Ceiriog valley, and contained some

one of the most impressive castles of its time. The

impressive feats of engineering. Chirk Castle had the most up-to-date

original design includes polygonal towers, with

defences for the time, with round ‘drum’ towers that allowed archers

Eagle Tower being the most impressive of these,

a wide firing field creating a ‘killing zone’ where the fields of fire

as opposed to the more traditional round towers.

overlapped. However, despite the courtyard well being is 28.5 metres

Edward’s son, the first English Prince of Wales, was

deep, it only held 300mm of water in the bottom and therefore could

born in Caernarfon castle in 1284 – and just under

probably only support a garrison of 20 to 30 men. Good job then that

700 years later, in 1969, the investiture of the current

slyly hidden murder holes enabled what few men there were to drop

Prince of Wales, HRH Prince Charles, took place here.

missiles down on invaders...

NWM 2022 Page 39


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
NWM - August 2022 by North Wales Magazine - Issuu