Conwy Castle

Conwy Castle

A fortress of eight towers

On a rocky outcrop where the river Conwy meets the sea in north Wales stands one of the mightiest medieval castles in all of Britain. Conwy Castle is a great rectangle of dark stone, guarded by eight massive round towers and divided into two strongly defended halves. Together with the walls that ring the little town beside it, it forms one of the most complete and impressive medieval fortifications in Europe.

Built by a conquering king

Conwy was built by King Edward I of England, one of the most powerful and warlike kings of the Middle Ages. In the late 1200s Edward set out to conquer Wales, whose princes had long resisted English rule. To hold down the land he had won, he built a ring of enormous castles across north Wales — an "iron ring" meant to crush any rebellion. Conwy was one of the greatest of these.

What is astonishing is how fast it was built. The castle and the town walls were raised in only about four years, between 1283 and 1287, by a huge army of workers under the direction of Edward's brilliant master builder, James of St George. Building so vast and strong a fortress so quickly was an extraordinary feat for its time.

A castle and a walled town

Conwy is special because it was built together with a complete walled town. The castle guards one end, and from it a ring of high walls, studded with towers and gateways, runs all the way around the little town beside it. English settlers were brought in to live in the new town under the protection of the walls, while the Welsh were largely kept outside — for these castles were tools of conquest as much as defence.

Inside the castle, behind its mighty towers, were grand royal apartments and a great hall, built so that the king himself could stay in suitable splendour when he visited his new Welsh lands.

Sieges and survival

Conwy saw its share of drama. King Edward himself was once trapped inside the castle by a Welsh uprising and a flooded river, and had to wait, short of food, until help arrived. Centuries later, during the English Civil War in the 1600s, the castle was again caught up in fighting. Through it all, its great stone towers endured.

After its fighting days were over, Conwy was left to decay, its roofs and floors falling in, but its massive walls and eight towers remained standing, too strong to crumble away.

A world treasure

Today Conwy Castle, together with the other great castles Edward built in Gwynedd, is protected by UNESCO as a world treasure — recognised as one of the finest examples of medieval military architecture anywhere. The town it guards still keeps its complete ring of medieval walls, which visitors can walk.

Visiting today

Visitors can explore Conwy's towers and great hall, climb the battlements for sweeping views over the river, the harbour and the mountains of Snowdonia, and walk the town walls that encircle the streets below. Powerful, complete and built with astonishing speed, Conwy Castle is one of the grandest monuments of the Middle Ages in all of Britain.