Conwy town walls
Encyclopedia
Conwy's town walls are a medieval defensive structure around the town of Conwy
in North Wales
. The walls were constructed between 1283 and 1287 after the foundation of Conwy by Edward I
, and were designed to form an integrated system of defence alongside Conwy Castle
. The walls are 1.3 km (0.8 miles) long and include 21 towers and three gatehouse
s. The project was completed using large quantities of labourers brought in from England; the cost of building the castle and walls together came to around £15,000, a huge sum for the period. The walls were slightly damaged during the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr
in 1401, but political changes in the 16th century reduced the need to maintain such defences around the town. The fortifications were treated sympathetically during the development of the road and railway systems in Conwy during the 19th century and survived largely intact into the modern period. Today the walls form part of the UNESCO world heritage
site administered by Cadw
. Historians Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham describe the defences as "one of the most impressive walled circuits" in Europe.
, a Cistercian monastery favoured by the Welsh princes. The site also controlled a important crossing point over the river Conwy
between the coastal and inland areas of North Wales, and was defended for many years by Deganwy Castle
. The English kings and Welsh princes had vied for control of the region since the 1070s and the conflict had been renewed during the 13th century, leading to Edward I
intervening in North Wales for the second time during his reign in 1282. Edward invaded with a huge army, pushing north from Carmarthen
and westwards from Montgomery
and Chester
. Edward captured Aberconwy in March 1283 and decided that the location would form the centre of a new county
: the abbey would be relocated eight miles inland and a new English castle and walled town would be built on the monastery's former site. The ruined castle of Deganwy was abandoned and never rebuilt. Edward's plan was a colonial
enterprise and placing the new town and walls on top of such a high-status native Welsh site was in part a symbolic act to demonstrate English power.
Traditionally Conwy's design and defences have been thought to have been inspired by the growth of the bastides. The bastides were new planned towns
created in both France
and English-held Gascony
during the period, characterised by grids of straight streets, often defended by combinations of castles and town walls. More recent research, however, has shown that English town design played a more significant role in shaping Conwy and other Edwardian town plans. Analysis of the new towns in Wales and England of the period has identified common similarities in their design, with most featuring a "T"-shaped street plan stretching away from the coast or river, aligned with a castle which is usually positioned at a top corner of the "T". The street plan of Conwy forms a mirror image of Beaumaris, for example, although the latter was defended by ditch
es and palisade
s rather than a stone wall.
The walls of Conwy were built at around the same time as the castle itself, under the overall supervision of Master James of Saint George, Edward's chief architect in North Wales. Huge amounts of labourers were mobilised from across England for the task, massed at Chester and then brought into Wales for each summer building season. The first phase of work on the walls in 1283 involved digging ditches and erecting a palisade around the future town to secure the area in order to allow further work to commence. The stone walls and towers were then constructed in three phases. Between 1284 and 1285, Richard the Engineer, Master James' second in command in North Wales, built the western side of the walls; this was the most vulnerable side of the town and was deliberately given priority. In 1286, John Francis, a Savoyard
mason, finished the south wall and in 1287 the remainder of the walls along the eastern quayside were completed under the supervision of Philip of Darley. Edward's accountants did not separate the costs of the town walls from that of the castle, and the total cost of the two projects came to around £15,000, a huge sum for the period.
and Lancashire
, and the town walls were in part designed to encourage immigrants to settle there in safety. The town of Conwy was only modestly successful, however; by 1312 it had 124 burgage
tenements – properties paying rent to the king – making it more successful than neighbouring Caernarfon
, but less so than Beaumaris. Welsh residents appear to have slowly arrived inside the town during the 14th century, and even then were subject to considerable suspicion. Protecting the town remained a priority and during this period the constable
charged with the security of the castle was also the mayor
of Conwy, although protecting the town walls was probably the duty of the citizens rather than the forces attached to the castle. The walls were guarded by crossbow
men, and improved firing positions for them were built into the town walls at the start of the 14th century.
In 1400 the Welsh prince Owain Glyndŵr
rose in rebellion against English rule. Two of Owain's cousins infiltrated and took control of Conwy Castle in 1401 and, despite the defensive walls, in the aftermath the town of Conwy was occupied for two months and sacked by Welsh forces. The townspeople complained that £5,000 worth of damage had been done, including the destruction of the gates and the bridges along the town walls.
Over a century later, there are records of the walls being repaired in the 1520s and 1530s by Henry VIII
in preparation for a potential royal visit, but the ascension of the Tudor dynasty
to the English throne had heralded a change in the way Wales was administered. The Tudors were Welsh in origin, and their rule eased hostilities between the Welsh and English. The priority given to Conwy's defences declined and the walls' defensive ditches became used as for discarding rubbish. Parts of the town walls were robbed for their stone during this period for use in the construction of local buildings.
built two new gateways into the walls in 1826 to accommodate the traffic from the new suspension bridge
across the river Conwy
. In 1848 Robert Stephenson
constructed the Chester to Holyhead
railway line, which ran through Conwy; unusually for the period, attempts were made to sensitively protect the appearance of the medieval fortifications and the entrance for the railway through the walls on the south side of the town was built in the form of a mock-Gothic
archway, while an exit tunnel was dug under the western walls.
Interest in the town walls grew and in the 19th century one of the towers was restored and part of the wall-walk opened up for tourists. The walls were architecturally surveyed for the first time between 1928 and 1930, with the results published in 1938. The town walls were leased from Conwy's local authority
by the Ministry of Works in 1953, and a concerted effort began to conserve and protect the fortifications. Many of the houses and buildings which had grown up against the walls since the 14th century were removed in an effort to improve the appearance of the walled circuit and to assist in conservation and archaeological work, and one of the 19th-century gateways inserted by Telford was demolished in 1958. Arnold J. Taylor, a prominent historian of the Edwardian castles, conducted extensive academic work on the history and architecture of Conwy's walls during the 1950s and 1960s, adding to their prominence.
Today Conwy's walls are managed by the Welsh heritage organisation Cadw
as a tourist attraction; they form a popular walk around the town, although not all of the walls are safe for tourists to use. The walls require ongoing maintenance; in the financial year between 2002 and 2003, for example, this cost £145,000 (£184,000 in 2010 terms). The walls were declared part of a UNESCO world heritage
site in 1986 and are classed as a grade 1 listed building and hold scheduled monument status. They are considered by historians Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham to be "one of the most impressive walled circuits" in Europe.
and limestone
used at the castle, but with additional rhyolite
stone used along the upper parts of the eastern walls. When first built, the historical record shows that the walls were "daubed" – it unclear precisely what this involved, but it implies the walls were not simply bare stone, and were possibly whitewashed. The 21 surviving towers are mostly "gap-backed", lacking walls on the inside of the towers, and originally included removable wooden bridges to allow sections of the walls to be sealed off from attackers. The tops of the walls feature an unusual design that uses a sequence of corbel
s to provide a flat, relatively wide wall-walk.
The east side of the walls emerge from Conwy Castle, but are gapped where the Chester to Holyhead road enters the town. The east side has four towers, with a postern
gate and the Lower Gate both giving access to the town's quay; all of these features have been substantially altered from their original medieval appearances. The Lower Gate, equipped with twin towers and a portcullis, controlled access to both the quayside and, prior to the construction of the bridge, the ferry across the estuary. The wall here was originally only 3.6 m (12 feet) high in places, and was later raised to its current height using rhyolite stone in the early 14th century.
The west side of the walls include nine towers, rising upwards towards the south-west corner. Two of the towers were significantly effected by 19th-century developments; one was converted into an entrance way for the Bangor Road in 1827, whilst another suffered a deep fissure caused by subsidence
from the excavation of the Chester to Holyhead railway tunnel in 1845, and had to be underpinned
in 1963. One of the remaining merlon
s on this stretch of the walls' battlements has a stone finial
on top, a design originally used along all of the town walls. The western wall originally extended out to the river Conwy itself, ending in a round tower, but this has since been lost; a similar spur arrangement was seen at Chester and Lincoln.
The walls stretch along the south of the town with eight towers and two gatehouses. The Upper Gate formed the main inland entrance to the town during the medieval period, and, in addition to its twin towers, was originally protected by a stone barbican
, of which some stonework still remains – a rare survival for town barbicans of this period. A gatekeeper would have lived over the entrance during the medieval period. The original defensive ditch and drawbridge have been filled in, however, and replaced by a modern road. The second gatehouse, Mill Gate, was designed to allow access to the royal watermill
that lay just outside the main town, and similarly features twin protective towers. In between the two gatehouses are the remains of Llywelyn's Hall, a grand building originally built into the town walls by Edward I before being dismantled and moved to Caernarfon Castle
in 1316. Further along the walls is the mock-Gothic archway built in 1846 to accommodate the local railway, possibly drawing on similar designs used in Chester. A unique set of twelve medieval latrine
s is built into the southern town walls, first constructed for the use of royal staff working in adjacent buildings in the 13th century.
Conwy
Conwy is a walled market town and community in Conwy County Borough on the north coast of Wales. The town, which faces Deganwy across the River Conwy, formerly lay in Gwynedd and prior to that in Caernarfonshire. Conwy has a population of 14,208...
in North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
. The walls were constructed between 1283 and 1287 after the foundation of Conwy by Edward I
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
, and were designed to form an integrated system of defence alongside Conwy Castle
Conwy Castle
Conwy Castle is a castle in Conwy, on the north coast of Wales.It was built between 1283 and 1289 during King Edward I's second campaign in North Wales....
. The walls are 1.3 km (0.8 miles) long and include 21 towers and three gatehouse
Gatehouse
A gatehouse, in architectural terminology, is a building enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a castle, manor house, fort, town or similar buildings of importance.-History:...
s. The project was completed using large quantities of labourers brought in from England; the cost of building the castle and walls together came to around £15,000, a huge sum for the period. The walls were slightly damaged during the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr
Owain Glyndwr
Owain Glyndŵr , or Owain Glyn Dŵr, anglicised by William Shakespeare as Owen Glendower , was a Welsh ruler and the last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales...
in 1401, but political changes in the 16th century reduced the need to maintain such defences around the town. The fortifications were treated sympathetically during the development of the road and railway systems in Conwy during the 19th century and survived largely intact into the modern period. Today the walls form part of the UNESCO world heritage
Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd
The Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd refers to a UNESCO-designated site of patrimony located in Gwynedd, Wales.In 1986, four castles related to the reign of King Edward I of England were proclaimed collectively as a World Heritage Site, as outstanding examples of fortifications and...
site administered by Cadw
Cadw
-Conservation and Protection:Many of Wales's great castles and other monuments, such as bishop's palaces, historic houses, and ruined abbeys, are now in Cadw's care. Cadw does not own them but is responsible for their upkeep and for making them accessible to the public...
. Historians Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham describe the defences as "one of the most impressive walled circuits" in Europe.
13th century
Before the English construction of the town of Conwy, the site was occupied by Aberconwy AbbeyAberconwy Abbey
Aberconwy Abbey was a Cistercian foundation at Conwy, later transferred to Maenan near Llanrwst and in the 13th century was the most important abbey in North Wales....
, a Cistercian monastery favoured by the Welsh princes. The site also controlled a important crossing point over the river Conwy
River Conwy
The River Conwy is a river in north Wales. From its source to its discharge in Conwy Bay it is a little over long. "Conwy" is sometimes Anglicized as "Conway."...
between the coastal and inland areas of North Wales, and was defended for many years by Deganwy Castle
Deganwy Castle
Deganwy Castle was an early stronghold of Gwynedd and lies at the mouth of the River Conwy in Conwy, north Wales...
. The English kings and Welsh princes had vied for control of the region since the 1070s and the conflict had been renewed during the 13th century, leading to Edward I
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
intervening in North Wales for the second time during his reign in 1282. Edward invaded with a huge army, pushing north from Carmarthen
Carmarthen
Carmarthen is a community in, and the county town of, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is sited on the River Towy north of its mouth at Carmarthen Bay. In 2001, the population was 14,648....
and westwards from Montgomery
Montgomery, Powys
The historic county town of Montgomery in Powys, Wales lies just three miles from the English border in the Welsh Marches. It is best known for its castle, Montgomery Castle, begun in 1223, and its parish church, begun in 1227. However its origins go back much further, as seen by the Celtic Iron...
and Chester
Chester
Chester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
. Edward captured Aberconwy in March 1283 and decided that the location would form the centre of a new county
County
A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...
: the abbey would be relocated eight miles inland and a new English castle and walled town would be built on the monastery's former site. The ruined castle of Deganwy was abandoned and never rebuilt. Edward's plan was a colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
enterprise and placing the new town and walls on top of such a high-status native Welsh site was in part a symbolic act to demonstrate English power.
Traditionally Conwy's design and defences have been thought to have been inspired by the growth of the bastides. The bastides were new planned towns
Planned community
A planned community, or planned city, is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed in a previously undeveloped area. This contrasts with settlements that evolve in a more ad hoc fashion. Land use conflicts are less frequent in planned communities since...
created in both France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and English-held Gascony
Gascony
Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a...
during the period, characterised by grids of straight streets, often defended by combinations of castles and town walls. More recent research, however, has shown that English town design played a more significant role in shaping Conwy and other Edwardian town plans. Analysis of the new towns in Wales and England of the period has identified common similarities in their design, with most featuring a "T"-shaped street plan stretching away from the coast or river, aligned with a castle which is usually positioned at a top corner of the "T". The street plan of Conwy forms a mirror image of Beaumaris, for example, although the latter was defended by ditch
Ditch
A ditch is usually defined as a small to moderate depression created to channel water.In Anglo-Saxon, the word dïc already existed and was pronounced 'deek' in northern England and 'deetch' in the south. The origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank...
es and palisade
Palisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
s rather than a stone wall.
The walls of Conwy were built at around the same time as the castle itself, under the overall supervision of Master James of Saint George, Edward's chief architect in North Wales. Huge amounts of labourers were mobilised from across England for the task, massed at Chester and then brought into Wales for each summer building season. The first phase of work on the walls in 1283 involved digging ditches and erecting a palisade around the future town to secure the area in order to allow further work to commence. The stone walls and towers were then constructed in three phases. Between 1284 and 1285, Richard the Engineer, Master James' second in command in North Wales, built the western side of the walls; this was the most vulnerable side of the town and was deliberately given priority. In 1286, John Francis, a Savoyard
Duchy of Savoy
From 1416 to 1847, the House of Savoy ruled the eponymous Duchy of Savoy . The Duchy was a state in the northern part of the Italian Peninsula, with some territories that are now in France. It was a continuation of the County of Savoy...
mason, finished the south wall and in 1287 the remainder of the walls along the eastern quayside were completed under the supervision of Philip of Darley. Edward's accountants did not separate the costs of the town walls from that of the castle, and the total cost of the two projects came to around £15,000, a huge sum for the period.
14th – 18th centuries
The new town of Conwy was populated by English settlers, particularly from nearby CheshireCheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...
and Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, and the town walls were in part designed to encourage immigrants to settle there in safety. The town of Conwy was only modestly successful, however; by 1312 it had 124 burgage
Burgage
Burgage is a medieval land term used in England and Scotland, well established by the 13th century. A burgage was a town rental property , owned by a king or lord. The property usually, and distinctly, consisted of a house on a long and narrow plot of land, with the narrow end facing the street...
tenements – properties paying rent to the king – making it more successful than neighbouring Caernarfon
Caernarfon
Caernarfon is a Royal town, community and port in Gwynedd, Wales, with a population of 9,611. It lies along the A487 road, on the east banks of the Menai Straits, opposite the Isle of Anglesey. The city of Bangor is to the northeast, while Snowdonia fringes Caernarfon to the east and southeast...
, but less so than Beaumaris. Welsh residents appear to have slowly arrived inside the town during the 14th century, and even then were subject to considerable suspicion. Protecting the town remained a priority and during this period the constable
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions.-Etymology:...
charged with the security of the castle was also the mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Conwy, although protecting the town walls was probably the duty of the citizens rather than the forces attached to the castle. The walls were guarded by crossbow
Crossbow
A crossbow is a weapon consisting of a bow mounted on a stock that shoots projectiles, often called bolts or quarrels. The medieval crossbow was called by many names, most of which derived from the word ballista, a torsion engine resembling a crossbow in appearance.Historically, crossbows played a...
men, and improved firing positions for them were built into the town walls at the start of the 14th century.
In 1400 the Welsh prince Owain Glyndŵr
Owain Glyndwr
Owain Glyndŵr , or Owain Glyn Dŵr, anglicised by William Shakespeare as Owen Glendower , was a Welsh ruler and the last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales...
rose in rebellion against English rule. Two of Owain's cousins infiltrated and took control of Conwy Castle in 1401 and, despite the defensive walls, in the aftermath the town of Conwy was occupied for two months and sacked by Welsh forces. The townspeople complained that £5,000 worth of damage had been done, including the destruction of the gates and the bridges along the town walls.
Over a century later, there are records of the walls being repaired in the 1520s and 1530s by Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
in preparation for a potential royal visit, but the ascension of the Tudor dynasty
Tudor dynasty
The Tudor dynasty or House of Tudor was a European royal house of Welsh origin that ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including the Lordship of Ireland, later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1485 until 1603. Its first monarch was Henry Tudor, a descendant through his mother of a legitimised...
to the English throne had heralded a change in the way Wales was administered. The Tudors were Welsh in origin, and their rule eased hostilities between the Welsh and English. The priority given to Conwy's defences declined and the walls' defensive ditches became used as for discarding rubbish. Parts of the town walls were robbed for their stone during this period for use in the construction of local buildings.
19th – 21st centuries
During the 19th century some changes to Conwy's town walls were made in order to accommodate a new railway line and roads. The engineer Thomas TelfordThomas Telford
Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE was a Scottish civil engineer, architect and stonemason, and a noted road, bridge and canal builder.-Early career:...
built two new gateways into the walls in 1826 to accommodate the traffic from the new suspension bridge
Suspension bridge
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. Outside Tibet and Bhutan, where the first examples of this type of bridge were built in the 15th century, this type of bridge dates from the early 19th century...
across the river Conwy
River Conwy
The River Conwy is a river in north Wales. From its source to its discharge in Conwy Bay it is a little over long. "Conwy" is sometimes Anglicized as "Conway."...
. In 1848 Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson FRS was an English civil engineer. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed locomotive builder and railway engineer; many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually the joint efforts of father and son.-Early life :He was born on the 16th of...
constructed the Chester to Holyhead
Holyhead
Holyhead is the largest town in the county of Anglesey in the North Wales. It is also a major port adjacent to the Irish Sea serving Ireland....
railway line, which ran through Conwy; unusually for the period, attempts were made to sensitively protect the appearance of the medieval fortifications and the entrance for the railway through the walls on the south side of the town was built in the form of a mock-Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
archway, while an exit tunnel was dug under the western walls.
Interest in the town walls grew and in the 19th century one of the towers was restored and part of the wall-walk opened up for tourists. The walls were architecturally surveyed for the first time between 1928 and 1930, with the results published in 1938. The town walls were leased from Conwy's local authority
Conwy County Borough Council
Conwy County Borough Council is the governing body for Conwy County Borough, one of the unitary authority areas of Wales.-Political makeup:Elections take place every four years...
by the Ministry of Works in 1953, and a concerted effort began to conserve and protect the fortifications. Many of the houses and buildings which had grown up against the walls since the 14th century were removed in an effort to improve the appearance of the walled circuit and to assist in conservation and archaeological work, and one of the 19th-century gateways inserted by Telford was demolished in 1958. Arnold J. Taylor, a prominent historian of the Edwardian castles, conducted extensive academic work on the history and architecture of Conwy's walls during the 1950s and 1960s, adding to their prominence.
Today Conwy's walls are managed by the Welsh heritage organisation Cadw
Cadw
-Conservation and Protection:Many of Wales's great castles and other monuments, such as bishop's palaces, historic houses, and ruined abbeys, are now in Cadw's care. Cadw does not own them but is responsible for their upkeep and for making them accessible to the public...
as a tourist attraction; they form a popular walk around the town, although not all of the walls are safe for tourists to use. The walls require ongoing maintenance; in the financial year between 2002 and 2003, for example, this cost £145,000 (£184,000 in 2010 terms). The walls were declared part of a UNESCO world heritage
Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd
The Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd refers to a UNESCO-designated site of patrimony located in Gwynedd, Wales.In 1986, four castles related to the reign of King Edward I of England were proclaimed collectively as a World Heritage Site, as outstanding examples of fortifications and...
site in 1986 and are classed as a grade 1 listed building and hold scheduled monument status. They are considered by historians Oliver Creighton and Robert Higham to be "one of the most impressive walled circuits" in Europe.
Architecture
The Conwy town walls today present a largely unbroken, 1.3 km (0.8 miles) long triangular circuit around the town, enclosing 10 hectares (22 acres), and – thanks in part to Conwy remaining a relatively small town – are unusually well preserved. They are mostly built from the same local sand-Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
and limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
used at the castle, but with additional rhyolite
Rhyolite
This page is about a volcanic rock. For the ghost town see Rhyolite, Nevada, and for the satellite system, see Rhyolite/Aquacade.Rhyolite is an igneous, volcanic rock, of felsic composition . It may have any texture from glassy to aphanitic to porphyritic...
stone used along the upper parts of the eastern walls. When first built, the historical record shows that the walls were "daubed" – it unclear precisely what this involved, but it implies the walls were not simply bare stone, and were possibly whitewashed. The 21 surviving towers are mostly "gap-backed", lacking walls on the inside of the towers, and originally included removable wooden bridges to allow sections of the walls to be sealed off from attackers. The tops of the walls feature an unusual design that uses a sequence of corbel
Corbel
In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
s to provide a flat, relatively wide wall-walk.
The east side of the walls emerge from Conwy Castle, but are gapped where the Chester to Holyhead road enters the town. The east side has four towers, with a postern
Postern
A postern is a secondary door or gate, particularly in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall. Posterns were often located in a concealed location, allowing the occupants to come and go inconspicuously. In the event of a siege, a postern could act as a sally port, allowing...
gate and the Lower Gate both giving access to the town's quay; all of these features have been substantially altered from their original medieval appearances. The Lower Gate, equipped with twin towers and a portcullis, controlled access to both the quayside and, prior to the construction of the bridge, the ferry across the estuary. The wall here was originally only 3.6 m (12 feet) high in places, and was later raised to its current height using rhyolite stone in the early 14th century.
The west side of the walls include nine towers, rising upwards towards the south-west corner. Two of the towers were significantly effected by 19th-century developments; one was converted into an entrance way for the Bangor Road in 1827, whilst another suffered a deep fissure caused by subsidence
Subsidence
Subsidence is the motion of a surface as it shifts downward relative to a datum such as sea-level. The opposite of subsidence is uplift, which results in an increase in elevation...
from the excavation of the Chester to Holyhead railway tunnel in 1845, and had to be underpinned
Underpinning
In construction, underpinning is the process of strengthening and stabilizing the foundation of an existing building or other structure. Underpinning may be necessary for a variety of reasons:*The original foundation is simply not strong or stable enough....
in 1963. One of the remaining merlon
Merlon
In architecture, a merlon forms the solid part of an embattled parapet, sometimes pierced by embrasures. The space between two merlons is usually called a crenel, although those later designed and used for cannons were called embrasures.-Etymology:...
s on this stretch of the walls' battlements has a stone finial
Finial
The finial is an architectural device, typically carved in stone and employed decoratively to emphasize the apex of a gable or any of various distinctive ornaments at the top, end, or corner of a building or structure. Smaller finials can be used as a decorative ornament on the ends of curtain rods...
on top, a design originally used along all of the town walls. The western wall originally extended out to the river Conwy itself, ending in a round tower, but this has since been lost; a similar spur arrangement was seen at Chester and Lincoln.
The walls stretch along the south of the town with eight towers and two gatehouses. The Upper Gate formed the main inland entrance to the town during the medieval period, and, in addition to its twin towers, was originally protected by a stone barbican
Barbican
A barbican, from medieval Latin barbecana, signifying the "outer fortification of a city or castle," with cognates in the Romance languages A barbican, from medieval Latin barbecana, signifying the "outer fortification of a city or castle," with cognates in the Romance languages A barbican, from...
, of which some stonework still remains – a rare survival for town barbicans of this period. A gatekeeper would have lived over the entrance during the medieval period. The original defensive ditch and drawbridge have been filled in, however, and replaced by a modern road. The second gatehouse, Mill Gate, was designed to allow access to the royal watermill
Watermill
A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...
that lay just outside the main town, and similarly features twin protective towers. In between the two gatehouses are the remains of Llywelyn's Hall, a grand building originally built into the town walls by Edward I before being dismantled and moved to Caernarfon Castle
Caernarfon Castle
Caernarfon Castle is a medieval building in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. There was a motte-and-bailey castle in the town of Caernarfon from the late 11th century until 1283 when King Edward I of England began replacing it with the current stone structure...
in 1316. Further along the walls is the mock-Gothic archway built in 1846 to accommodate the local railway, possibly drawing on similar designs used in Chester. A unique set of twelve medieval latrine
Latrine
A latrine is a communal facility containing one or more commonly many toilets which may be simple pit toilets or in the case of the United States Armed Forces any toilet including modern flush toilets...
s is built into the southern town walls, first constructed for the use of royal staff working in adjacent buildings in the 13th century.
See also
- List of town walls in England and Wales
- Caernarfon town wallsCaernarfon town wallsCaernarfon's town walls are a medieval defensive structure around the town of Caernarfon in North Wales. The walls were constructed between 1283 and 1292 after the foundation of Caernarfon by Edward I, alongside the adjacent castle. The walls are 734 m long and include eight towers and two...
- Chester city wallsChester city walls.Chester city walls consist of a defensive structure built to protect the city of Chester in Cheshire, England. Their construction was started by the Romans when they established the fortress of Deva Victrix between 70 and 80 AD. It originated with a rampart of earth and turf surmounted by a...
- York city wallsYork city wallsThe English city of York has, since Roman times, been defended by walls of one form or another. To this day, substantial portions of the walls remain, and York has more miles of intact wall than any other city in England...
External links
- Cadw site describing the town walls and their approach to protecting the UNESCOUNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
World Heritage SiteWorld Heritage SiteA UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...